Sarma dismisses Mamata’s NRC concerns, claiming no such process is underway and accusing her of vote-bank politics.

The Assam Chief Minister on Thursday, August 7, criticized his West Bengal counterpart, Mamata Banerjee, saying the Bengali people are being scared of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) sword dangled before them on the eve of the 2026 Assembly elections.

Early next year, West Bengal and Assam will hold assembly elections. Ms. Banerjee's worries about the NRC, according to Mr. Sarma, were baseless. Abruptly, she declares that she will not follow the NRC. Who has requested that she follow the NRC? The NRC is where? He told reporters in Guwahati on Thursday night that no one has given the NRC any orders.

In an attempt to win over Bengalis, she is inciting terror in their minds. She has not mentioned the NRC in the past five years. As the elections draw near, she is now discussing all of these topics, he said. Ms. Banerjee has been calling attention to specific "NRC" letters that West Bengal nationals, mainly Bengali Hindus, have received from the Foreigners' Tribunals in Assam.

Uttam Kumar Brajabasi, a 50-year inhabitant of Dinhata in Cooch Behar, was one such instance. Mr. Sarma claimed that the notice was part of a legal procedure and that Mr. Brajabasi was an Assamese national who had temporarily relocated to West Bengal. The Chief Minister further denied claims, stating that the Assam government had not made any "special decision" to remove from the FTs the instances of non-Muslim illegal migrants who had arrived in India before 2015 from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.