Continuing his tough talk on illegal migrants, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday hinted that the NRC will not be restricted to Assam, but will be implemented across the length and breadth of the country.

“Assam thinks NRC was wrong, smaller states felt there would be a spillover. Let me assure, not only Assam, we want the entire country to be cleansed of illegal migrants,” Amit Shah said at North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) conclave in Guwahati.

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Amit Shah is on a two-day visit to the northeast.

Stating that National Register of Citizens (NRC) was a “problem”, the Home Minister said, “A lot of people think many people were left out of NRC. We want to assure that no illegal migrants will be able to stay in Assam and go to another state. We want the country to be rid of illegal migrants”.

He said this as Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma had expressed his fears over the excluded people in the Assam citizens’ list entering his state.

At a North Eastern Council meeting in Guwahati on Sunday, Shah had said that the Centre will not allow a single illegal immigrant to stay in the country.

“Questions are being raised about the NRC by different sections but today I just want to say this that the BJP-led government is committed to ensure that not a single illegal immigrant enters the region,” he said.

The final National Register of Citizens (NRC) list in Assam was published on August 31, including names of 3.1 crore people and leaving out 19 lakh names.

The Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise was aimed at identifying whether a person residing in Assam is actually an Indian or a foreigner.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs is planning to implement the National Citizenship Register throughout the country. The ministry had issued a notification on July 31, 2019, where it mentioned that the Central government has decided to prepare and update the population register in the rest of India other than the state of Assam.