CPM politburo member Mohammed Salim said protests in places such as Shaheen Bagh in Delhi and Park Circus in Calcutta, where women have taken up the leadership against the divisive politics of the BJP, had become a challenge for both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah.

“Today in hundreds of places such as Shaheen Bag, Park Circus and Lucknow, our mothers and sisters, as well as students, has sat in demonstration in such biting cold. The people of this country and abroad are watching these protests. The women who are referred to as veiled, uninterested in politics, have come out on the streets and are challenging Modi and Shah,” said Salim, while addressing to a 5,000-odd gathering on the grounds of Hariprasad High School in Birbhum’s Nalhati on Saturday.

“They are telling them (Modi and Shah) that people of this country will resist your conspiracy to divide India,” Salim added.

On Saturday, the Left Front and Congress jointly held a rally in Nalhati against the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register.

Several senior CPM leaders, including party’s central committee member Ram Chandra Dom, former Congress MP from Jangipur Abhijit Mukherjee, Congress MLA from Birbhum’s Hasan Miltan Rashid were present at the rally. Salim asked the people to unite against the CAA, NRC and NPR and said the Centre’s citizenship push would be a problem for the entire the country irrespective of the state, caste or creed.

“We have to be united against the BJP’s policy to implement CAA, NRC and NPR. This is not an issue of any state, any religion or and caste. It is a threat for 135 crore citizens of India. The persons who wrote our Constitution had mentioned in the first line of the preamble — ‘We, the people of India’,” Sailm said.

Salim said the people must also unite to fight against the misrule of the Trinamul.

Congress MLA Miltan Rashid said the Left and Congress together would resist the BJP’s divisive politics and destructive policy. “BJP is trying to divide the country through religious polarisation. We, the Left Front and the Congress would jointly resist it. The fight will be for job not caste,” said Rashid.