AMN
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday assured the people of Bengal that there would be no CAA or National Register for Citizens till she was alive.
“There will be no CAA or NRC in Bengal as long as I am alive,” Banerjee told a large audience at Naihati in North 24 Parganas. Iterating that her Government would not construct any detention centre, neither will allow any such place to come up in Bengal the Chief Minister said “there will be no detention centre in Bengal and no one will have to leave this State till I am there,” and added no one had any right to take away people’s right to citizenship.
“Right of citizenship is our birth right and no one can take that away,” the Chief Minister who had earlier said that she was not in the know of her parent’s birth places or for that matter she was not in the possession of their birth certificates said and asked “who are they (BJP Government) to take away our citizenship. We are born Indians. We are the children of the soil.”
Attacking the BJP leaders for trying to divide the Indian society in the name of “such discriminatory laws” Banerjee said “this is one leadership that is systematically planning to divide India for their narrow political purpose. But they will not succeed in their game plans as India is united as one. Indian culture unites them.”
On the right of the students to protest against alleged anti-people approach of the government she asked, “Why can’t students protest against a draconian law? The Centre is taking action against protesting students and is rusticating them from universities,” and reminded that she would always take the students
’ sides. Banerjee who had been leading large rallies in Kolkata on Friday took the movement outside the mega city. The Chief Minister is likely to hold similar rallies in Purulia district and Siliguri in January her party sources said.
Meanwhile, in first such move the Left Front and the Congress on Friday hit the streets with a massive rally against the CAA and NRC promising to took out even larger processions in days to come.
In what is being seen as the two party’s muscle flexing exercise the “impressively big” rally walked about 3 kilometres shouting slogans against the CAA-NRC and in support of an all-India general strike on January 8.
“This is the first time we have come out jointly in Kolkata on a big issues and have been able to unite all the anti-BJP, anti-TMC parties that have secular credentials,” State PCC president Somen Mitra said adding “in future bigger rallies will be taken out.
The procession comprising 20 Left parties and Congress was jointly led by top CPI(M) leaders like Biman Bose, Suryakanto Mishra and Congress leaders like Mitra, Pradip Bhattacharya and others.
The BJP too took out a massive rally at Tamluk in East Midnapore in support of the CAA with State BJP president Dilip Ghosh attacking the TMC and the Left for “confusing the people about the real import of the law which never talks about taking one’s citizenship but talks about providing the people with citizenship right.”