Allaying fears over a National Register of Citizens [NRC] in West Bengal, Union Home Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] president Amit Shah on Tuesday urged his party workers to visit every household and assure families that Hindus and other religious minority refugees will not have to leave the country.
“I want to tell you, and assure you that the BJP government will bring the CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016) before NRC,” Mr. Shah told a BJP seminar here on NRC.
He accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of “misleading the people of the State on the issue of NRC.”
CAB first
During the last Lok Sabha elections, in early April, Mr. Shah made similar arguments saying, “CAB will be passed first to give citizenship to the refugees and then NRC will be introduced.”
Mr. Shah, who is on his first visit to the State after the Lok Sabha polls, said his party’s stand is clear that “not a single religious minority will be forced to leave the country while no infiltrator will be allowed to stay here.”
“Mamata Didi says that in case there is an NRC lakhs of Hindu refugees will have to go away from Bengal. There cannot be a bigger lie,” he said. The Home Minister gave an assurance that not a single refugee — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or Jain, will be forced by the government to leave the country.
Voting rights
The BJP president said every “minority refugee” will have voting rights and right to become the Prime Minister of the country.
“No refugee will have to leave the country and no infiltrator will be allowed to stay — these are two settled facts,” Mr. Shah said, adding that “no country can progress by bearing the burden of crores of infiltrators.”
The Trinamool Congress slammed Mr. Shah’s speech as being on “divisive lines and unconstitutional.” Finance Minister Amit Mitra said “17 people have committed suicide” due to NRC.
Published - October 02, 2019 12:45 am IST
