Amid the turmoil over electoral roll revision in Bihar ahead of assembly polls, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that demographic changes in the state can’t be addressed solely through legal measures like voter list revisions or the NRC.

According to the Indian Express report, Sarma has requested that the NRC, currently pending since 2019, be considered an admissible document for the SIR of electoral rolls once finalised, potentially delaying the SIR process.

“We have had NRC here. We don’t know what will happen here (regarding voter list revision), but there is no mechanism (to identify foreigners) in South Salmara-Mankachar, Hailakandi (districts bordering Bangladesh). Our problems need an Assamese kind of solution, an indigenous solution…. Some anganwadi worker inside a village, some gaon panchayat secretary had the responsibility of making the NRC for their particular village. How can they call their own relatives in the village foreigners?… Assam’s problem cannot be compared to that in any other state; it has to be improved as we keep battling them,” he said.