Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday made it clear that the party would make its opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which the BJP is claiming to implement anytime now, as one of the mainstays of its Lok Sabha poll campaign.

Mamata urged people to ensure their names on the electoral roll to avoid any mischief by the saffron ecosystem.

“Don’t let your names be excluded from the voters’ list. If you do so it will help the BJP to shout saying CAA CAA and remove your name (as a citizen of this country). Those whose names are not on the voters’ list please go and enrol your name. You have to take it very seriously,” Mamata said while addressing a crowd at Jaynagar in South 24-Parganas in a state government programme of distribution of government benefits.

“You know how we did the movement against NRC (National Register of Citizens). You saw our movement against CAA. We will not let them divide people. I will not surrender before the BJP,” she added.

Mamata’s instruction for enrolment came after the Election Commission of India rescheduled its date of publishing the final electoral roll to January 22, the day of the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The earlier deadline for publication was January 5.

A source said ruling Trinamul instructed its party workers to use this extra
time to ensure that no voter is left out.

Many believe that Trinamul’s stand against the CAA in the 2021 Assembly polls helped Mamata consolidate minority votes.

Mamata wants to do that again as the BJP is preparing to intensify its campaign on the CAA, a Trinamul leader added. “People of Bengal are always afraid of the implementation of the CAA. The public meeting was in South 24-Parganas, one of the districts with a significant minority population and Hindus who came from Bangladesh. By raising the issue from the Jaynagar meeting, she set the tone for the party’s campaign in the Lok Sabha polls,” the leader said.

The CAA was passed in Parliament on December 11, 2019, to fast-track
Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Recently, Union home minister Amit Shah said he would ensure the implementation of the act in Bengal.

“Mamata Banerjee is opposing the CAA. I would like to inform her that CAA is an act in our country and no one can stop this from implementation. I will ensure this,” Shah told from a public rally in Calcutta on November 29.

The BJP’s campaign for CAA would only help Trinamul get votes of minority communities in the Lok Sabha elections, Trinamul leaders feel.

“The more they (the BJP) will speak for the CAA, the more it will help us get votes. The people of Bengal have never wanted any such act that would divide people,” a Trinamul leader in Calcutta said.

BJP leaders, however, said they would convince the people of Bengal of the need for the CAA to save the state from infiltration, especially from Bangladesh.

“The CAA is a must for Bengal to ensure that the state does not turn into Pakistan or Bangladesh. The infiltration that started during the Left tenure increased during the Trinamul regime as the ruling dispensation used it to boost its vote bank. We hope the people of Bengal will understand the need for the CAA. The people of the state do not trust Mamata anymore,” said Samik Bhattacharya, the BJP’s chief spokesperson in the state.

Central agencies

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that central agencies staged pre-planned dramas to arrest her party leaders ahead of the polls.

“The central government has become a government of the (central) agency. They are staging a pre-directed drama to arrest our leaders. They (BJP) consider arresting leaders of my party would put them at an advantage in the elections. It is not so easy...,” she said.

Mamata also claimed that the CBI probing the Bogtui massacre in Birbhum did not give any seizure list to a family on seizing money and other items after an accused died in their custody.