A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah appealed to people in the Shahid Minar rally in Kolkata to support the Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has hit out at Shah while addressing her Trinamool Congress(TMC) party workers at Netaji Indoor Stadium. Mamata, who has been vocal about CAA and the violence in North-East Delhi, termed it as a planned genocide.
“It was a genocide, people just watched, Police just watched. An IB officer was killed. They(BJP) can get away with this in Delhi and they want to take the Gujarat model forward. They killed 25-30 people in UP. They have applied the same formula (Referring to the 2002 Godhra riots). Dilli ka ladoo will ruin the country,” said Mamata.
Close to 50 people have died in the violence including an officer of the Intelligence Bureau(IB) while around 400 people have been injured. Mamata entrusted TMC leaders Derek Obrien and Sudip Bandhopadhyay to hand over money to victims of the Delhi violence.
Kolkata saw protests by Left and students during Shah’s visit on Sunday. BJP supporters, on the other hand, took out a rally in support of CAA. They were seen shouting slogans like ‘Desh ke gaddaro ko goli maaro.' Three people accused of chanting these slogans were arrested by the Kolkata Police, based on a complaint filed on Sunday night. “We identified people who chanted these slogans saying goli maaro. The language they used is illegal and they have been arrested. Legal action will be taken against them.” Added Mamata.
The TMC supremo also chose to lash out at Shah for his “Aar Noy Onnai (No more injustice)” initiative where he asked people to give a missed call on 9727294294 to support CAA. Shah also assured people in the rally that CAA will give refugees a chance to get citizenship and that Mamata was taking away that right. “Everyone is a citizen. You are taking away their citizenship by creating this act. People have died in the name of citizenship. More than 300 people have died with Assam, UP and Delhi put together,” said Mamata while refuting the claim.
The West Bengal Chief Minister also hit out at the Congress saying the party has an understanding with the BJP and questioned why the Left Front is not holding CAA protest rallies in Delhi and only chose to protest in Kolkata.
Mamata announced CAA protests by the TMC at the block level on the 11th of March called ‘Chi Chi BJP’. The TMC supremo said she will continue her fight till the time BJP is not oust from the county.
