Iterating that the Centre must ensure no genuine Indians are left out of the NRC, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said she was “shocked” to find out that one lakh people of the Gorkha community have been excluded from the list.

The Trinamool Congress chief insisted that “justice should be meted out to all Indian brothers and sisters.”

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“Earlier I was not aware of the full NRC fiasco. As more and more information is coming in, we are shocked to see that names of more than 1 lakh Gorkha people have been excluded from the list,” Banerjee said in a statement issued by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership.

The Gorkha community forms a large voter-bank in the northern West Bengal where a large section of the community has been demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

The Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangha (BGP) has claimed that more than 1 lakh people belonging to the community have been excluded from Assam’s final NRC. The list is believed to comprise mostly Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims.

“In fact, names of thousands and thousands of genuine Indians, including those of CRPF and other jawans, family members of former President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, have been excluded (from the list),” said Banerjee.

The updated National Register of Citizens (NRC), which identifies bona fide Indian citizens in Assam, was released on Saturday. A total of 3,30,27,661 people had applied for inclusion in the register. Of them, 19,06,657 were excluded, a statement from the NRC State Coordinator’s office said.

“The government must take care that genuine Indians are not left out and justice is meted out to all of our genuine Indian brothers and sisters,” Banerjee added. On Saturday, the CM had expressed concern over the exclusion of large number of Bengalis from the register. Dubbing the updated final NRC as a “fiasco”, she had said it exposed those who are trying to gain “political mileage” out of the exercise.

The update process of NRC started in 2013 when the Supreme Court of India passed orders for its update. Since then, the apex court bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice R Fali Nariman has been monitoring it continuously. The entire project is headed by the State Coordinator of National Registration, Assam, Prateek Hajela under the strict monitoring of the Supreme Court.