Mamata asks Shah to clarify clauses of CAA
CITIZENSHIP LAW Bengal CM asks if a person will be declared foreigner and then allowed to apply for citizenship under CAA, accuses Centre of ‘misleading people’ on the issue
DARJEELING: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who took her fight against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed pan-india National Register of Citizens (NRC) to the Darjeeling hills on Wednesday, sought clarifications from Union home minister Amit Shah on the clauses of the new law, even as she accused the Centre of spreading lies on the issue.
Addressing a rally after leading a 4-km-long march through the serpentine roads of this Himalayan town, Banerjee said the Centre is trying to push CAA only in non-bjp ruled states.
She claimed all states except West Bengal have attended the meeting on the National Population Register (NPR) in New Delhi due to fear of Bjp-led Union government. “Every day the Union home minister is giving new sermons. Yesterday he said that we are misleading the people. I would like to ask him to clarify whether a person will be declared foreigner and then allowed to apply for citizenship under the CAA,” Banerjee said.
Reiterating that the CAA, the NPR and the NRC won’t be allowed in West Bengal, Banerjee said before forcing any citizen out of the state, the BJP “has to throw her out” first.
“Due to NRC in Assam, lakhs of Gorkhas have been rendered homeless. We will not allow that to happen in Darjeeling as long as I am here,” she told the rally in Chowkbazar area.
Banerjee’s comments come a day after Shah had accused the opposition parties of “misleading” people on the CAA and said that the law will not be scrapped despite protests over it.
The Trinamool Congress president, who has been at the forefront of anti-caa agitations, has led several protests since the issue snowballed into a major political firestorm last December
Meanwhile, the Binay Tamang faction of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha took part in the rally, with their supporters joining alongside TMC activists.
Some other parties having presence in North Bengal hills lent moral support to the rally.
The CAA, passed in Parliament last month, seeks to provide Indian nationality to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh before December 31, 2014.
The Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has been going all out against the CAA, National Population Register and NRC. Banerjee has been regularly leading rallies and addressing pubic meetings on these issues.