West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a protest meeting opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) at Siliguri in which she accused him of comparing India and Pakistan while criticising his opponents. “Are you the envoy of Pakistan to India?” Banerjee said, directing her question to PM Modi.
“Has Pakistan made you its envoy that you glorify it every single day?” she asked. “Why do you compare India with Pakistan?” she continued. She said India is a country with rich culture and heritage and did not need to be compared with Pakistan.
Banerjee’s attack on the PM comes in the backdrop of his remark on Thursday in which he had asked the CAA protesters to speak out against the atrocities committed by Pakistan against the religious minorities there. The PM was of the view that the CAA protesters were against the refugees as they were against the CAA – an Act that seeks to provide citizenship to the non-Muslim refugees in India who faced persecution in the neighbouring countries on religious grounds. He asked the protesters to raise their voices against Pakistan instead of opposing the legislation.
Referring to that, Banerjee today said that Indians don’t want to hear about Pakistan and asked him to talk about the problems that India is facing today. “Talk about Hindustan, not Pakistan,” she said. She also alleged that the PM has made it a practice for himself to ask anyone in India who complains about the unemployment, hunger, or citizenship issues to leave the country and go to Pakistan. She said that the PM keeps on chanting “Pakistan” while himself being the PM of India.
Banerjee also took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders at the Centre saying that they speak differently on the same issue. Recently, amidst all the scare around NRC, the PM had said that his government has never officially discussed it, while the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad remarked that NRC will be implemented across the country no matter what. She alleged that the BJP was creating “confusion and contradiction” on the issue.
Banerjee today again appealed to students and all political parties to take the protest against CAA and NRC as the second fight for freedom in the country. She cautioned people saying, “If you do not come out, then these people will ruin the country.” She will hold her next anti-CAA rally on January 7 from Barasat to Madhyamgram in North 24 Parganas and in the hills of north Bengal on January 22.
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