TMC manifesto vows to junk CAA, stop NRC
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) released its poll manifesto on Wednesday, promising a string of welfare measures and vowing to do away with the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
The manifesto release came on a day party chief Mamata Banerjee said there will be no democracy and elections in the country if Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned to power for the third consecutive term, calling the 2024 Lok Sabha polls the “darkest election” in India’s history.
Addressing an election rally at Silchar in Assam, Banerjee said CAA will be scrapped and NRC discontinued if the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc forms the government at the Centre.
“This election is very dangerous. I have never seen such a dangerous election in my life,” Banerjee said, alleging that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre has made the entire country a “detention camp.”
“If the INDIA bloc wins, there will not be the NRC, CAA and Uniform Civil Code (UCC). We will repeal all discriminatory laws,” she said.
“If Modi wins again, there won’t be democracy and there won’t be any election. The entire country will be sold off,” she added.
The poll document comprised 10 promises — titled “Didir Shopoth (Didi’s vows)”.
This included 100 days of guaranteed work and increased minimum wage, housing for poor, 10 free cooking gas cylinders a year for below poverty line (BPL) families, free ration at door-step, hike in old-age pension, capping of fuel prices and price stabilisation fund to tackle price fluctuations, student credit card to purse higher education and financial assistance to girls and women among others.
“Today’s manifesto is what we are committed to do when TMC, as part of the INDIA alliance, will form the Union government,” TMC’s parliamentary leader in Rajya Sabha, Derek O’Brien, said while releasing the manifesto at the party headquarters in Kolkata.
The TMC is contesting all 42 seats in Bengal and four out of the 14 Lok Sabha seats, including Silchar, in Assam.
The party has fielded Radhashyam Biswas from Silchar, Gauri Sankar Sarania from Kokrajhar, Abul Kalam Azad from Barpeta and Ghana Kanta Chutia from Lakhimpur seat.
Urging people to vote for all four TMC candidates in the general elections, Banerjee announced that her party will contest all 126 assembly seats in the northeastern state in 2026. “This is just a trailer and the final is yet to come. I will come again to play the final,” she added.
Though the TMC is part of the INDIA bloc, it is fighting the BJP alone in West Bengal, she said.
“The Congress and CPI(M) have joined hands with the BJP in Bengal. But we are with the INDIA bloc in the rest of the country... They (BJP) will try to scare us, lure us with money, but we are not afraid,” she claimed.
Attacking the BJP, she further alleged: “They only want riots in India. In fact, they can give only one guarantee — there will be riots after looting votes. They have exploited every place in India and tortured women, Adivasis, farmers and all other marginalised people.”
On TMC’s promise to repeal the CAA if the opposition INDIA bloc is voted to power, BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said: “They (TMC) are saying they will repeal CAA. You will be able to do it only if any of your candidates reach Parliament. This is madness. Nobody believes them. They have nothing in their hands.” He made the remarks while speaking to news agency ANI at Purba Bardhaman in Bengal.