Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Thursday threatened Mamata Banerjee and her party leaders opposing plans for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal to be prepared to face the same consequences as those of Bangladeshi infiltrators.
“Take my words…. The NRC will be implemented in Bengal and she (Mamata) will have to witness the process being carried out in Bengal in her lifetime. Those leaders opposing implementation of NRC here too would have to go with the infiltrators,” said Ghosh.
Ridiculing Mamata’s warning to the BJP over implementation of NRC in Bengal, the BJP chief said: “We have already seen her powers…. She opposed demonetisation, implementation of GST (but now taking maximum benefit out of it), abolition of triple talaq, abolition of Article 370 and abrogation of Article 35A. The BJP had implemented all. It will do so in case of NRC, too.”
The BJP state president’s barbs were in response to Mamata’s anti-NRC march from Sinthi More to Shyambazar in Calcutta on Thursday that was followed up with a rally in which she vowed to resist NRC in Bengal.
Ghosh claimed that around two crore “Bangladeshi Muslim” infiltrators had “illegally” entered India through the Indo-Bangla border in Bengal and had spread across other parts of the country up to the Kashmir.
“While one crore infiltrators are still staying in Bengal the others have gone elsewhere in the country. We too were not in favour of NRC in Bengal, but the manner in which Trinamul leaders in North and South 24 Parganas are helping the Rohingyas to illegally cross the border and helping them in settling here, there are no other options,” the BJP state chief said in a news conference.
Advocating implementation of NRC in Bengal, Ghosh claimed that the highest numbers of Bangladeshi Muslims and the Rohingyas get an illegal entry to India through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border across the state.
“Actually, Bengal needs NRC even more than Assam. I have always said that once in power in Bengal, the BJP government would implement NRC in the state to identify the illegal infiltrators and show them their ways,” he asserted.
The BJP parliamentarian from Bengal alleged that around 4.5 lakh people in Assam among the 40 lakh people, whose name were not in the draft NRC list, had suddenly disappeared despite being given the chance to prove their identities.
Similarly, in Bengal too, many of the Rohingyas, who were given shelter by the Trinamul leaders in North 24 Parganas, have also disappeared.
“The BJP government would not allow the Muslim infiltrators to use Bengal as a corridor to illegally enter India and spread across the nation,” he asserted.
On Tuesday, Union minister Smriti Irani had lambasted Mamata for opposing the NRC and had asserted that the Narendra Modi government was committed to protecting the rights of every citizen and that illegal immigrant would be “dealt with accordingly”.
Last week, Mamata had led from the front in denouncing NRC when the Bengal Assembly passed a resolution opposing the exercise in Assam. Backed by the non-BJP Opposition, Mamata had ruled out such a list in Bengal.
The resolution — introduced by Trinamul and supported by the Left and the Congress - was the first such official protest against the exercise that has kept 19 lakh people in Assam out of the final NRC.
Nadda visit
BJP national working president J.P. Nadda is likely to visit Calcutta on September 27 and 28. “We have requested Naddaji to visit Calcutta to attend a seminar on abolition of (Article) 370. This will be his first visit to town after becoming the party’s working president. We want him to offer tarpan (Hindu ritualistic homage to the deceased) for the 80 BJP workers who were murdered in last few years on Mahalaya,” said Ghosh.
He also added that Union home minister and BJP’s national president Amit Shah might be in Calcutta to inaugurate a few Durga Puja pandals.
