The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership has asked its state unit to monitor the response of the masses if the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is implemented in Bengal.
NRC has been a burning issue with its implementation Assam, rendering 19 lakh people homeless. The issue has also attracted international attention with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet raising concerns over the issue and asking India government to look at the issue from a humanitarian point of view.
State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has already said several times that NRC will soon be implemented in Bengal as well and about 2 crore people are expected to be excluded from such a list. Union minister Smriti Irani also said the same during her visit to Kolkata recently.
As of now, the state BJP has reported that it will still take time to assess the general response of people of Bengal on NRC. As BJP achieved a landslide victory at the Centre in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, people have a general positive feeling about the party in the state as of now, the state BJP unit has also reported. The ruling Trinamool Congress is on the backfoot, they added.
The BJP thus wants to be cautious on the issue with the approaching Assembly election in 2021, in which it wants to gain power in the state. As such, the BJP is studying people’s responses on the NRC more carefully before taking a decision on actual implementation of NRC. Sources say that BJP wants to monitor every step carefully before the Assembly election. The party doesn’t want to let NRC become a cause for losing out on people’s support as its immediate target is the 2021 Assembly elections in which it wants to wrest power in the state from Mamata Banerjee.
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