Guwahati: Amid uncertainty and debate over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam, two former state NRC coordinators, Prateek Hajela and Hitesh Dev Sarma, are locked in a face-off over allegations levelled by the latter.
Hajela, who had long refrained from responding to charges of financial irregularities during the NRC exercise, has finally broken his silence.
Speaking to ThePrint, Hajela accused Sarma of engaging in “irresponsible commenting based on bazaar news”. This was in response to a 15 February Facebook post where Sarma said he heard through the grapevine about All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) leader Samujjal Bhattacharya collecting Rs 16 lakh every month from Hajela as part of the NRC ‘scam’.
He goes on to say that he does not know the truth, but it will come out if the matter is investigated. “But one thing is true,” Sarma claims in the post, that “Hajela did not seek a review of the NRC, nor did Bhattacharya until the supplementary list was released.”
“Passengers in the same boat?” he asks.
“He (Sarma) is totally irresponsible — the allegation of Rs 16 lakh per month being paid to somebody is not factual, and based on bazaar ki khabar. Samujjal has also denied it. I wonder what is the authenticity of his other comments,” Hajela told ThePrint.
Hajela, who is currently serving as principal secretary to the government of Madhya Pradesh, was succeeded by Sarma in 2019. Sarma retired in July last year.
Contacted by ThePrint, Bhattacharyya too said that Sarma’s statement was “misleading, propaganda-oriented and a conspiracy”, adding that he would file a defamation case against Sarma.
The AASU has warned Sarma to steer clear of defaming its efforts of rallying for NRC since the Assam Movement (1979–1985) that sought the detection of illegal immigrants, their deletion from the voters’ list and deportation to Bangladesh.
“Sarma is lying, and he’s doing it for cheap publicity. No sane person would say such a thing,” Bhattacharyya told ThePrint.
In December 2022, a Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) report tabled in the Assam assembly flagged several issues including financial irregularities in fund utilisation, a fivefold increase in the project cost and threats to data security in the NRC exercise.
Talking to ThePrint about the current scenario, former Assam police chief and writer Harekrishna Deka said that with different parties having vested interests with claims and counter-claims, “a fresh exercise may become a never-ending senseless effort”.
“The updating of the NRC was a massive exercise and it was carried out under the Supreme Court’s supervision. Sarma seems to have a personal grudge against Hajela. Ever since his taking over of the duties of NRC Coordinator, he is speaking against his predecessor without being able to furnish reliable proof,” Deka said.
On corruption charges, “the best action would be to probe the financial irregularities flagged by the audit report,” he added.
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An old rivalry
Hajela was appointed NRC state coordinator in October 2013, two months before the notification was issued for the start of the exercise.
He left Assam in October 2019, possibly due to threat perception, after the publication of the final draft on 31 August. The final NRC excluded 19.22 lakh people out of nearly 3.3 crore applicants — 6 per cent of the state population. However, the Registrar General of India (RGI) is yet to notify it as the final NRC.
“Our enmity increased while we were working together in the NRC project. He (Sarma) was found leaking information from the office. He himself wrote a two-line letter to me saying he is not mentally and physically suited for the post of Executive Director NRC,” Hajela told ThePrint.
“In 2017, he was nominated as the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Hamren, West Karbi Anglong. When I learned about it, I asked the government to cancel his appointment — because a person of his nature would have been inimical to NRC’s interests. He was then called back. I don’t regret doing that,” he added.
Sarma told ThePrint that he left NRC because of “differences of opinion” with Hajela. “He refused to hear me out. I noticed anomalies that were reported to him, but he didn’t take note. Around November 2016, I gave this letter requesting to be relieved from duties of executive editor, but the processing took time and I was released in February 2017.”
“If I was posted as the Hamren DC, I would have had to work on the NRC from the district, and the anomalies I noticed earlier would have been raised again. He (Hajela) wrote to the government that I should not be posted there. I was told that since the matter is under the Supreme Court’s supervision, I should not be in the DC’s chair,” Sarma said.
Hajela also admitted to adversely reporting about Sarma’s performance. “Even after Sarma was relieved of his role in the NRC project, he did not really leave. Once I left Assam in 2019, there was so much negativity about me. No other officer was willing to take this post except Sarma. I had written to the then registrar general, telling him not to place Sarma as an NRC coordinator, but I realised that because of the prominence I achieved, the personal enmity was high.”
Sarma told the Gauhati High Court in December 2020 that 4,795 “ineligible” persons made it to the NRC list, which he also said is not “final”. He also pointed to errors in the family tree verification method that sought to segregate Indians from those claiming false lineage.
He informed the court that his observations were based on findings from the NRC coordinator’s office between May 2014 and February 2017.
Asked about alleged anomalies reported by Sarma during that period, Hajela said, “None of the various fora he approached including the RGI have entertained his contentions, possibly because there’s no substance in them.”
The Supreme Court had dismissed the central and state governments’ plea on 23 July 2019 to conduct a sample re-verification process of 10 per cent to 20 per cent in border districts and other parts. The order came before the final list was published, when Hajela told the apex court that re-verification of 27 per cent names was already done to ascertain wrongful inclusions and exclusions.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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