West Bengal passes anti-CAA resolution in Assembly: fourth state to do so after Kerala, Punjab & Rajasthan

West Bengal on Monday passed passed a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the Assembly, becoming the fourth state after Kerala, Punjab and Rajasthan to do so.

Rajasthan had passed a resolution against CAA on Saturday. After passing similar resolution in the Assembly, Kerala has already moved Supreme Court against the CAA, and Punjab is to follow. Banerjee had earlier announced the decision that the resolution would be brought in the state Assembly soon.

After the proposal against CAA was placed in the state Assembly today, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sujan Chakraborty and Congress leader Abdul Mannan questioned why the resolution had taken so long to be brought in. They also questioned why some Trinamool Congress members of Parliament were not present and did not vote against it when the CAA was passed in both houses of the Parliament in December 2019. However, Trinamool Congress leader and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim stood up to thank Mamata Banerjee for boycotting the meeting called by the Centre in Delhi to discuss the National Population Register (NPR), to especially indicate that all other states had participated in the said meeting, including the Congress.

Mamata Banerjee then urged the Opposition CPIM and the Congress to understand the importance of opposing the CAA and added that their repeated target being Banerjee herself was in fact, “diluting” the impact of the protest. She said it is important for the Congress and the CPIM in the state to come together on opposing this Act along with the Trinamool Congress. She said that “Didi and Modi” were not the same, and this slogan and position of the CPIM and the Congress would boomerang and hit them hard.

The CAA which seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring Muslim majority nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh has been criticised as discriminatory and protests have erupted across the country. Last week, the Supreme Court heard 144 petitions on CAA, and gave the Centre four weeks to reply.