Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday accused the BJP of insulting the people living near the Bangladesh border by asking them to prove their Indian citizenship for the second time in the name of CAA.
Banerjee, who was addressing a public meeting at Ranaghat in Nadia district, said that if a resident of West Bengal's Nadia or North 24 Parganas districts, both bordering Bangladesh, has to prove his citizenship again, the same yardstick has to be applied for all, including the prime minister and Union home minister.
"Those who are misleading the people in the name of the Citizenship Amendment Act, I have one question for them. Why rules cannot be framed even after the CAA was tabled in Parliament. Because they used the CAA to get votes.
"If you have all documents and got benefits of the government's welfare schemes, and if you have voted in earlier polls, why there is a need to do it all over again? Because the BJP wants to divide the people," the TMC's Diamond Harbour MP said while addressing the gathering. The CAA facilitates the grant of citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
But as the rules under the Act have not been framed by the government yet, no one so far could be granted citizenship under it. "In the name of the National Register of Citizens, the BJP had omitted the names of 19 lakh people from the NRC list. We won't allow them (BJP) to do the same in West Bengal," said Abhishek Banerjee, the nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
His comment came weeks after Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, dared the CM to stop the implementation of the CAA in the state. After the landslide victory in the 2011 assembly polls and also in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, "the TMC's performance in many parts of Nadia district is not satisfactory in the subsequent polls", the party MP said.
"The results in Ranaghat were not up to expectations. We are here to take corrective action. If you are not happy with the work of people's representatives in three-tier panchayat bodies, you tell us why," Abhishek Banerjee told the gathering. He shared a toll-free number where people can send names of their favourite candidates for panchayat polls for a particular area.
"If anyone wants to work for TMC to serve his own interests, the door is open for him...If anyone is found to be involved in contract business directly or indirectly, he cannot hold any post," the TMC leader said, adding that the party will not tolerate any act of vote loot and booth jam during the 2023 panchayat elections. Banerjee publicly asked Partha Pratim Dey, the pradhan of Tatla-1 gram panchayat in the district, to send his resignation papers by Monday for allegedly "not visiting the area after being elected four years back".
"Mr Roy please send your resignation by Monday. We will have a new panchayat pradhan who will be more responsive to the needs of people. Those having acceptability among local residents will only get tickets. I am razing down the wall between you (voters) and the people you will elect," the TMC leader said at the public meeting.
Banerjee also stated, "Earlier, leaders from Kolkata used to come here and announced names of candidates (for rural polls) nominated by the party and then did not come back to the area in the subsequent six months to see how they were performing. Those days are over. The new TMC will correct the previous mistakes and be more transparent to make a new panchayat system for people." Banerjee also accused the CPI(M) and the BJP of being involved in the murder of TMC workers in the district in the last five years.
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