The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced that it had received more than 1.95 lakh applications from individuals requesting the inclusion or exclusion of names from Bihar’s draft electoral roles. Of these, around 25,000 have already been addressed, Tiwari said.

Between submissions, 79 was filed by CPI (ML) -Liberation and three were filed by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Both sides are recognized as state-level political institutions in Bihar.

As the process of filing claims and objections enters in its last four days, any such application has been submitted – including any national party – BJP or Congress.

The Commission did not break how many of the total 1,95,802 requests are especially related to the inclusion or exclusion under the ‘claims and objections’ category.

In media reports, an anonymous officer was quoted, saying, “claims and objections are negligible, as compared to more than 60 million names from the draft list for various reasons.”

According to the pole body, till Monday, documentation has been obtained for 99.11 percent of the 7.24 crore voters listed in the draft role.

The draft voter list was released on 1 August as a special intensive amendment (SIR) exercise in Bihar.

In a statement released on Sunday, August 24, the ECI highlighted the claim and objection to the citizens to fix any error in the draft role and to present any of their documents that they may have left while filling their calculations.

Between 24 June and 24 August, the Commission said that 98.2 percent of the voters presented their documents within the 60-day window.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has directed the Commission to accept the Aadhaar Card or one of the 11 approved identity documents, demanding to be added to the election register.

In turn, the ECI has appealed to the court to have their trust in the Commission to handle the SIR process in Bihar before the upcoming elections.

Assam is in troubled and upheaval today, one of the most beautiful and bounts states in India. The reason for this is ‘outsiders’, mainly Bengali Muslims-Automatically Bangladeshi is a deep-root concern among Swadeshi Assamia as Bangladeshi. The problem, however, is more complex.

Ahm integrated the Brahmaputra Valley and ruled from 1228–1826. They were migrants of Thai (Tai) origin – from Guijhou in South China, who entered through Thailand and Burma’s glory land. He maintained his ‘foreign’ pride and religion for about three centuries before assimilating into Hinduism.

This question that is a foreigner and who is not, therefore, depends on someone’s approach on a large scale. The irony is that when we celebrate his victory – such as the famous Mughal defeat of Borfukan in 1671 – we ignore the fact that the Mughal general was a Hindu Raja Ram Singh of Ajmer.

There was a turn in 1826 when the British removed the Burmese occupying the ‘Assam’, defeated the remains of Ahmas and enacted people such as new lands and wealth and gentia. Shortly thereafter, the British deliberately put a deliberate policy to settle the land and resources of the region to settle the ‘Mainland’ (Central) Indians.

The magician Bengal Presidency was part of Assam, soon educated Bengali Babus saw teaching and administrative positions, while Bengali farmers expanded farming. In 1874, one of the densely populated Eastern districts of Bengal, Sylhet was merged with Assam to make the province of an integrated Chief Commissioner with Shillong as its capital.

Neither the belly-Bengalis (large-scale Muslims) nor Assamese, mainly Hindus liked it, but both had to swallow it. Obviously, the movement and disposal within this ‘United Provinces’ was completely disqualified and the old settlers of the century get a hyper when the ‘external’ question is raised.

With the flourishing of British tea gardens, oil is being found in Digboi in 1889, and new coal mines and other resources are opened, the British found migrant labor truck loads from Bihar, Central India and Nepal to Assam’s tea gardens and coal mines, which makes serious neglect of local Assamia. A famine in Nagaon noticed that their number fell further. Today’s stress is rooted in these colonial misdeeds.

After independence and subsequent partitions, Sylhet moved to East Bengal (later Bangladesh), but there was no late-up in the flow of refugees in Assam. In 1950, Parliament passed the immigration (removal from Assam) to accept Assamese’s concerns. India’s first NRC (Civil Register of Citizen) was built in Assam based on the 1951 census. But every time riots in East Pakistan, religious oppression extended Hindu Bengalis towards Assam, West Bengal and Tripura, while poverty brought Muslims from East Pakistan to these states.

The problem of many layers of non-disgrace-speakers and their possession of fertile land and paying jobs cannot simply go. Local demonstrations against him became quite common in the 1970s – all Assam Students Union and all the Assam Gana Sangram Parishad with sometimes violence. Their demand: to find and expel illegal migrants – both Hindu and Muslim.

In 1979, a terrorist offshoot – the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) – emerged for “India to Asambha Assam”. Violence was at its peak in February 1983, with the infamous Nelli massacre in which some 2,000 people, mainly Bengali Muslims, were killed in one of the worst pogroms in independent India.

The popularity of the Assam movement led by AASU and Aagsp continued until Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi broke the Assam Agreement in August 1985. Aasu and AagSP leaders will soon form governments and take official steps to weed ‘foreigners’. However, ULFA was curved and violent, and operated on foreign soil.

Even in 1991, when I was posted in Barpeta and Nalbari as the supervisor of the Election Commission, ULFA slogans were raised – screaming ‘Indians go out’ and using other derogatory conditions. So there was heavy security, that a step could not be taken without ringing by a gun-totting guard. Over the years, batches of armed ULFA cadres began to surrender, recently led a major faction led by Arbinda Rajkhova.

The ULFA army led by more aggressive Paresh Barua still operates from China, with the only purpose to cut Assam away from India.

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Despite the movements, the central fear persisted: Assamese could become a minority in its state. We have not even touched the issue of Bodos and many tribal groups, which are demanding our own ‘land’ free from Assamese or within or within Assam. Assamese were rapidly disappointed at the slow progress of identifying ‘foreigners’ and sometimes boiling outbreaks -sometimes boiling.

In 2013, the Supreme Court stepped into and ordered an immediate update to NRC of Assam and strictly monitored by Justice Ranjan Gogoi (an Assamia) and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman.

The BJP, with an aggressive Hindu agenda, came to power at the Center in 2014 and accused the Congress governments on the issue of Mulayam-Peding foreigners. BJP’s state unit in Assam rode behind this combative and in 2016 seized Shakti.

Entire NRC process Grained for six yearsUnder intensive investigation and amid allegations of prejudice and massive confusion. The final update NRC for Assam was published on 31 August 2019, but no one was satisfied. It certified some 3.1 million people as real citizens in the population of 3.3 crore. It was surprising for many people that out of 19 lakh suspected foreigners, there were more Bengali Hindus than Muslims. Most Assamese did not accept this list compiled after a long drawn process costing Rs 1,603 crore by March 2022.

The governments of India and Assam were released from conclusions. Soon, soft-spoken Sarbanand Sonowal was replaced by radical Himant Biswa Sarma in 2021-a former Congress stallwart replaced the Hindutva Champion. It is during his tenure that high-granality is the rule where ‘Mass’ (Bengali Muslims) are particularly targeted.

Since 2021, he launched an aggressive campaign for the ‘encroachment’ ‘free’ government or forest land, and the record would prove that almost all such ruthless expulsions have been against Bengali speaking Muslims. He claims that he has freed 1.5 lakh bighas and is ramping on a scale ahead of next year’s assembly elections. There is no doubt that he wants to play communal cards, and there is any violence, destruction or death, but is a collateral damage.

But there is another aspect of Sarma’s plan – his alleged collusion in ‘handing over the government’ to the government and even constitutionally favorable industrialists protected tribal land. During a recent hearing, Gauhati High Court Expressed shock and disappointment Sarma’s 3,000 bigha allocation (about 4 sq km) Tribal land for a private company in Dima Hasao district.

A group of tribals in the region met the People’s Tribunal Team (Harsh Mandar, Prashant Bhushan, Vajahat Habibullah, Syeda Hamid, themselves and others) during their recent visit – to explain how illegal this action was.

Some of us visited the village of Burduar in Kamup district, where Raba Tribals talked about eviction to make us a way for some ‘Township’ project. In Golpara, the government made a prohibitory orders under Section 144 of (Old) CRPC to block our journey, but Mandar and Habibullah defined the order and visited the affected villages like Rakhishini, Hasila Beel and Asshudubi and told the authorities about bulldozers and muscles.

On 27 August, CM issued a shoot-on-vision order to the police in Dhubri district-to intimidate the minority community with population and protect “Sanatan Dharma which is in danger”.

This is the Assam of Himanta Biswa Sarma, who arrests Pawan Khera in Will and where the police issues the police until the Supreme Court is interfered against journalists Siddharth Vidarajan and Karan Thapar. It is a suspicious honor that Sarma took time out to brand our journey as “Jamaat-inspired” and allegedly stacked the Chosest interactive on us to try to disrupt Assam.

Welcome to India of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and his very competent contestants, Himant Biswa Sarma.

Jawahar Sarkar A retired IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha MP