Kolkata: The BJP on Sunday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of practising “divisive politics” over the CAA by instilling fear in the minds of people against it.
Samik Bhattacharya, the party’s Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson, also asserted that while the BJP works “decisively”, the Trinamool Congress works “divisively”.
“The CAA is aimed at according citizenship rights to the rightful claimants. Much like abrogation of Article 370, abolition of the triple talaq and setting up of the Ram temple, the Narendra Modi government has fulfilled all its promises,” he told a press meet here.
The Centre had earlier this month implemented the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, notifying the rules four years after the law was passed by Parliament to fast-track citizenship for undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who came to India before December 31, 2014.
“Irrespective of what Mamata Banerjee says in public, she knows very well that the CAA is irreversible. Her opposition to it stems from her stand to not take action against anti-national elements at work in Bengal for years. The BJP will bust all these forces,” Bhattacharya claimed.
Earlier in the day, Banerjee, while launching her Lok Sabha election campaign from the Krishnanagar constituency, warned people that applying under the CAA would designate them as foreigners.
“The CAA is a trap to turn legal citizens into foreigners. Once you implement CAA, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will follow. We would allow neither CAA nor NRC in West Bengal. Don’t fall for the false assurance of the central government. If you apply, you will be designated as a foreigner for five years,” the CM asserted.
In a jibe at the opposition INDIA bloc, Bhattacharya said while TMC leader Derek O’Brien is seen holding hands with Congress and CPI(M) leaders in Delhi, her party supremo slams WBPCC chief Adhir Choudhury and CPI(M) leader Md Salim in the state.
“In West Bengal, people are made to assume that the INDIA bloc is in tatters, Congress-CPI(M) leaders are at loggerheads with the TMC through their utterances. But then, the Left, Congress and TMC leaders are seen holding each others’ hands in Delhi. That is the reason people don’t give any importance to these parties,” Bhattacharya said.
He claimed that voting for any of these parties tantamounts to voting for the TMC.
“Let the (Lok Sabha) elections begin. As the polling will enter different phases, the TMC will be more and more disorganised. People are not with them anymore,” he added.
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