Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav was in Calcutta on Saturday evening to meet the protesters, who are camping in the open since the past five days at the Park Circus Maidan to demonstrate against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.

The protesters said what had started as a protest hub of 200-odd women and children had swelled to thousands of men and women who are braving the cold to mark their protest.

“Today was the fifth day of our protest. Women and children are sitting in the open in the cold. They will not move till their voices are heard,” said an organiser.

Yadav, who was one of the first to reach the Jawaharlal Nehru University last Sunday when the campus was under attack, said the fight was against violence and it was time to stand up for the Constitution.

“It is time to stand up for non-violence, to stand up for the National Anthem, National Emblem and the Constitution,” Yadav said in his address at Park Circus Maidan, where he stayed for an hour.

In the presence of many feisty women, the Park Circus Maidan protest replicates the spirit of Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, where women have been in the forefront of resistance that began on December 14 last year.