West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said she will oppose the newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC) from being implemented in the state till her last breath. \u201cIt will happen over my dead body,\u201d she announced at a public meeting outside Jorasanko Thakurbari in Kolkata where she ended a rally that started at the BR Ambedkar statue on Red Road this afternoon.<\/p>\n
Banerjee appealed for peace and unity in a state that saw violent clashes in several areas for the past few days, leading the government to snap internet connection in specific areas of some districts. At the meeting in Kolkata, Banerjee said that some clashes were deliberately organised in order to blame the Muslims. She also appealed to the religious majority population to raise their voices to stop divisive politics and to protect the minorities. She said it would be wrong to think that only the minority population will be affected by this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to pull down this government, let them try,\u201d she thundered. \u201cI will go on protesting the CAA and NRC till my last breath. I can be killed, but I won\u2019t compromise on this.\u201d Banerjee said that during the trouble over the past few days, the Centre had asked the state if there was need for the Army and Central paramilitary forces. \u201cThey create trouble, and they ask if we need force and then they will say that the law and order situation is not right. I think our police force is capable of handling the situation, if people cooperate with us,\u201d she said. She said that people saw what the Army and Central forces did during the protests in Assam, and five people had died. Banerjee said that the Bharatiya Janata Party should first see whether peace was prevailing in states that they were running.<\/p>\n
She also rued how the Centre had unreasonably cancelled trains on the pretext of trouble in some areas. Banerjee asked people to not get trapped set by the BJP and to organise the protests by maintaining peace and order.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to maintain peace and not inconvenience common people,\u201d she said, adding that protests need to continue in peaceful, democratic manner. She asked people, if they so wished, to send letters to the President and the state Governor and ask them how their democratic rights could be taken away simply because a party has majority at the Centre.<\/p>\n
Banerjee said that already chief ministers of various states had started to voice their protest against the implementation of the CAA and NRC and she hoped more would join in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protests must go on, but peacefully, says Mamata Banerjee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":7729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,69,36,44,68,49,32,37,46],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-7728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-bengal","tag-bjp","tag-caa","tag-cab","tag-citizenship-act","tag-citizenship-amendment-act","tag-mamata-banerjee","tag-national-news","tag-nrc","tag-trinamool-congress"],"yoast_head":"\n