E-Paper
INDIA coalition will revoke CAA, NRC, UCC if it wins: Mamata Banerjee
Mamata Banerjee also alleged that a section of the media was drawing wrong conclusions about TMC’s relation with the INDIA coalition
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Uniform Civil Code (UCC) will all be revoked by the INDIA coalition if it comes to power, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee told voters on Thursday at back-to-back rallies in East and West Midnapore districts.
“Don’t vote for BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison. I promise that if Modi goes and if INDIA alliance forms the government, then NRC, CAA and UCC will all be revoked,” Banerjee said at West Midnapore district’s Midnapore constituency.
“I did not allow NRC here. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi knows he cannot enforce NRC in Bengal as long as Mamata is around. That’s why he wants to see me go. BJP doesn’t know that I have endured torture and stood before bullets during my years in politics. Nobody can compete with me,” Banerjee, 69, said.
Since the campaign for the seven-phase polls began almost two months ago Banerjee has been speaking against CAA, especially in regions where the Dalit Namasudra and the Matua communities have significant presence. A vast majority of these people entered India as refugees from Bangladesh. In the 2019 polls, BJP promised to enforce CAA for these people, and it was finally done in March this year.
On Wednesday, around 300 people, who came from Pakistan, were given citizenship certificates in Delhi by the Union government.
In Bengal, however, the Namasudras and Matuas have so far avoided filing online applications since most of them don’t have Bangladeshi documents to prove their foreign origin.
Reacting to Banerjee’s statements, Bengal BJP chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said: “CAA is a Central law. Any state government that refuses to enforce it will be quarantined because people of this county have supported the law.”
Banerjee also clarified her stand on the INDIA coalition on Thursday. She alleged that a section of the media was drawing wrong conclusions about TMC’s relation with the INDIA coalition.
“Many seem to have misunderstood my position at the all-India level. I said we are not in alliance with Congress and CPI(M) in Bengal, but we are very much there in the INDIA coalition. I named the coalition. We are in it, and we will be in it. Some papers are publishing misleading news,” Banerjee said at Tamluk.
On May 13, while addressing a rally in North 24 Parganas district, she had hinted for the first time that she was not in the race for the prime minister’s chair.
“TMC will give full support to the INDIA coalition when it forms the next government at the Centre. We don’t want anything. Let people live. Let the nation live,” Banerjee said on that day, claiming that BJP will not get more than 195 of Lok Sabha’s 543 seats.
Since East Midnapore happens to be the home ground of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari, an MLA from the district where his father Sisir Adhikari and brother Dibyendu Adhikari hold the Kanthi and Tamluk Lok Sabha seats, respectively, as TMC MPs, Banerjee unleashed a scathing attack on the family, calling the Adhikaris “traitors.” The seats held by Sisir and Dibyendu Adhikari are being contested by BJP this year.
At the Tamluk seat, former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay is contesting on a BJP ticket against TMC’s youth front leader Debangshu Bhattacharya. At the Kanthi seat, on the other hand, Suvendu Adhikari’s youngest brother Soumendu is contesting for BJP against TMC’s Uttam Barik.
Soumendu Adhikari joined BJP days after Suvendu Adhikari resigned from the Mamata Banerjee government, in which he was a cabinet minister, to join the saffron camp in December 2020. He defeated Banerjee at the Nandigram seat in East Midnapore by 1,956 votes.
At Tamluk, Banerjee paid homage to the people who died during the violent movement against the erstwhile Left Front government’s move to acquire farmland at Nandigram for a chemical hub which was later aborted.
Banerjee targeted the Adhikaris without naming any of them.
“The father and son conspired with CPI(M) to engineer the mass killings. They were nowhere to be found during the first 15 days of the violence. The father and son went for a loot when they were ministers and MPs (in TMC government). I don’t want to reopen old accounts,” Banerjee said.
Banerjee said: “When TMC was formed, the father and son were not there. Those who own crores have gone to BJP to save themselves. I was cheated in the Nandigram election. My votes were looted. The district magistrate, superintendent of police, local police officers were all replaced with help from the Election Commission just because BJP is in power at the Centre. Power supply was suspended after polling to change the results. I will take my revenge. Future will show me how and when to do it. I have moved court. The case is pending.”
“BJP won’t stay in power for ever. CBI, Income Tax and ED will not keep you on their laps forever. God and Allah will decide your future,” she added.
“I warn our candidates. Be on the alert. Money is being distributed to secure votes. Temples are getting money but not masjids because they don’t like Muslims,” she said.
At Midnapore constituency, where BJP’s former state president Dilip Ghosh won in 2019, the saffron party has fielded Agnimitra Paul, its legislator from Asansol South in West Burdwan district, against TMC’s June Malia, a local legislator.
