Om Prakash Mathur, the national vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), triggered a major political storm by saying that Assam’s contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented across the country if his party comes to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Expressing confidence in BJP’s victory in next year’s general elections, Mathur, a BJP MP in the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan, said that the saffron party won’t let India become a dharmshala (inn).
“We’ll win in 2019. NRC has now been executed only in Assam under Supreme Court’s direction but we’ll implement it across the country. We won’t let the nation turn into a ‘Dharmshala’,” Mathur told reporters in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan.
He added that the planned NRC across India will be done “legally”.
“Infiltrators will be ousted legally. No Indian citizen will be thrown out,” he stated.
“The entire country is suffering from the problem of Bangladeshi infiltrators. There is not a single city or town which is not suffering from the problem of Bangladeshi infiltrators,” Mathur said.
He added that the BJP did not create the NRC.
“The NRC seed was planted by Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. All we have done is show the courage to execute it,” he said.
Mathur also slammed Congress president Rahul Gandhi for failing to implement NRC and prove his loyalty to his family.