Protests against NRC, CAB to start in West Bengal right away: Mamata Banerjee

There won’t be any NRC in West Bengal, nor implementation of the Citizenship Act, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee reiterated on Friday. She was speaking at a press conference in East Midnapore’s Digha today.

Banerjee said that Trinamool Congress will organize rallies against NRC and CAB from Monday and Tuesday. The rally on Monday will start from the Ambedkar statue in the Dalhousie area of Kolkata and reach the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road and end at Jorasanko. The rally on Tuesday will start from in Jadavpur and end at the Gandhi statue.

Banerjee, who will herself be present in these rallies, has appealed also to all political parties – other than the BJP – to be present. She has also appealed to people from every walk of life to join the protest rallies.

Banerjee also said that the CMs of Kerala and Punjab – who have officially said they won’t implement CAB in their states, may consider taking out similar protest rallies in their states. She appealed to people all over the country to bring out rallies, and organise a movement against the NRC and the Citizenship Act.

“What I had said on day one, I will say the same even now,” Banerjee said while speaking on maintaining her resolve on not letting Bengal come under the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Act.

The chief minister accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of tarnishing India’s image before the world as two ministers from Bangladesh cancelled their trip to India (the Bangladesh foreign minister and the home minister), and there are now reports of the possibility of the Prime Ministers of Japan postponing his visit to India due to the unrest in the Northeast.

Banerjee said that the BJP intends to give citizenship only to those who support them.

She said that a country cannot be divided on the basis of religion. Mentioning that she had warned the BJP government years ago against its demonetisation move and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and its negative effect on the country’s economy, Banerjee said that this time too she had warned the Centre of their decision to implement NRC and CAB as she had foreseen the negative effect it would have on the religious and ethnic sentiments of the people.

She said that the impact of the NRC and the CAB would touch the lives of each one of us, and everyone – irrespective of religion – will be equally affected by it.

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