As per draft National Register of Citizen (NRC) of July 2018, which of the following States more than 40 lakh illegal migrants were found?

The correct answer is C) Assam. The draft NRC published on 30 July 2018 included about 2.89 crore of the 3.29 crore applicants, which left out roughly 40.07 lakh people. That is the figure the question is testing.

The NRC update was carried out only in Assam, under the Supreme Court's monitoring from 2013. It rests on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, which was inserted through the Assam Accord (1985). The cut-off is midnight of 24 March 1971. Anyone who could not prove residence before that date through legacy data or linkage documents was left out.

• A) Nagaland: No NRC update of this kind was undertaken there, so no such figure exists.
• B) Mizoram: Same reason. It was not part of the Assam NRC process.
• D) Tripura: It has a history of migration, but it was not covered by this exercise.

Being left out of the draft is not a legal declaration of foreigner status. Claims and objections followed, and the final list was published on 31 August 2019, excluding about 19 lakh people. So the 40 lakh figure belongs to the draft and is no longer the final number.

Mains angle: this links to citizenship law, the Assam Accord, federalism and the politics of identity and migration in the Northeast.

Trap: Candidates often confuse the draft figure with the final 2019 figure, or assume the NRC was run across the Northeast.