NESO seeks special commission to revise voter rolls, opposes CAA in Northeast

The Northeast Students’ Organisation ( NESO) has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to set up a Special Commission for extensive revision of electoral rolls. The student body said the exercise should detect and delete the names of foreigners and illegal immigrants from the voter list within a fixed time frame.

NESO, the apex body of eight students’ organisations from the Northeastern states, held demonstrations across seven states on Monday. The group also called on the Centre not to implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, in the region.

In separate memorandums sent to the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and the Chief Ministers of the Northeast, NESO highlighted the challenges posed by what it described as the continued influx of illegal migrants from neighbouring countries.

“The unabated influx of illegal migrants has brought serious demographic changes in the Northeast region in particular and other parts of the country in general,” the memorandum, signed by NESO Chairman Samuel B. Jyrwa and Secretary General Mutsikhoyo Yhobu, stated.

The group said that refugees and undocumented migrants had created insecurity among indigenous people, who fear the loss of culture, tradition, political identity, and control over land.

“The unguarded porous border has been used by fundamentalist groups to infiltrate into the region, thereby further threatening the existence of the indigenous people. There is every reason to believe that there are already a considerable number of militant fundamentalist groups operating in the Northeast with a design to overrun the whole of NE according to their whims and fancies,” the memorandum added.

NESO also voiced concern over the non-implementation of the Assam Accord of 1985, calling for a review of its clauses after nearly four decades.

The organisation further demanded extension of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) across the entire region. The ILP, enforced under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873, is a travel document that allows Indian citizens entry into certain Northeastern states for a limited period and purpose. It is currently applicable in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur.

NESO also pressed the Centre to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) of 1951, calling it the only official document on citizenship in the region.