Picking up from where she left on Tuesday Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continued to spit fire on the BJP Government for tossing an electoral “lollipop” — at teeming non-Muslim refugee population — in the form of Citizenship Amendment Act, which she said was a deceitful legislation that would finally end up not in according but snatching the citizenship of the migrant population, particularly the Matua community.
The Matuas are a scheduled caste community that had migrated to India from Bangladesh in the face religious persecution and have large presence in the State’s bordering districts — including North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Raiganj etc — impacting at least 8-10 parliamentary constituencies and 55-75 Assembly seats.
Speaking to the media she said, “This is nothing but a lollipop being dangled at the poor citizens who had migrated to Bengal … as they are telling this is not an Act that will provide citizenship … this is an Act that will finally usher in NRC (National Register for Citizens) which will ultimately take away the people’s citizenship rights.”
As CAA was related to NRC so “we will never allow these to be implemented in Bengal … we will never allow detention camps to come up in Bengal like Assam where 13 lakh Hindu Bengalis have been incarcerated … we will not allow such things in this State … remember this is Bengal.”
Warning that the BJP Government was playing with fire Banerjee said, “NRC is bound to follow CAA … those who are not affected by CAA now will in future be affected by NRC.” Apparently the Chief Minister’s statement was aimed at both the Matua and particularly the Muslim community — to arrest the post-job-scam alienation, experts like BN Majumdar said.
Later in Kolkata she said, “as soon as you apply for citizenship through CAA you play into their hands … you concede that you are not a citizen whereas you indeed are … if you are not a citizen then how are you getting the benefits of government schemes, how are you getting ration card or government jobs or properties … Remember if you get into this trap then you are surrendering your rights … what will happen to your education, your children’s education, your jobs, your properties.”
Banerjee who — apparently in view of a massive groundswell of support for the new Act among the refugee communities — on Wednesday suddenly cancelled her anti-CAA march at Siliguri said, “CAA is just a hoax a bunkum a fraud on the people … no one will benefit from this … this is an electoral tool to gain votes … so as to make up for their lack of performance in the past five years.”
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari assured the people from a rally at Ranghat that CAA had nothing to do with obliteration of citizenship. “It is a law to give and not to take away citizenship as is being falsely propogated by a liar of a Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee … I also assure my Muslim brothers and sisters not to get worried by CAA as it will not affect them,” he said.
“Our liar of a Chief Minister has said that once you enroll in CAA will lose your benefits like Laxmir Bhandar and Swasthya Saathi etc but I can assure you that if we come back to power we will triple the amount you get in Laxmir Bhandar … that is from Rs 1,000 we will make it to Rs 3,000,” he said.
