Guwahati- Even after two and a half years after enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the Central government yet to frame rules to execute the law, Trinamool Congress’s national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee said here on Wednesday, terming the law as “BJP’s jumla”.
He said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in West Bengal last week that the government would implement the CAA as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic ends but he remained silent during his 3-day visit in Assam on May 8-10.
After inaugurating the Trinamool office at Jan Path (Jayanagar) in Guwahati, Banerjee addressed a big gathering of the party workers for the first time in Assam.
“CAA is a BJP’s jumla (false promise), they are taking so much time to frame the rules of the law. However, we have made our stance on CAA clear from day one that we oppose the draconian act,” Banerjee later told the media.
He said that the NRC (National Register of Citizens) was prepared spending Rs 1,600 crore and now it’s a botched list as over 19 lakh people in Assam remained out of it.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has been saying that the NRC should be reverified so it is clear that there are differences within the BJP on the NRC since this was a project of Centre, he claimed.
Reacting to Union Home Minister’s allegation that the West Bengal government is not cooperating with the Centre in dealing with infiltration, Banerjee noted that checking illegal infiltration from Bangladesh border is the responsibility of the BSF, since they man the border and it is the Centre’s job is to secure border.
He also announced that his party would contest the next year’s Assembly polls in Tripura and Meghalaya to take on BJP and its ally National People’s Party (in Meghalaya) and exuded confidence that the Trinamool would form government in both states.
“All of you might have seen the kind of violence the BJP unleashed in Tripura. Our leaders, workers, and supporters have been targeted, killed. Nobody is safe in BJP ruled Tripura.
“There is a basic difference between Trinamool and other parties that when we enter a state, we fight it all out,” he asserted and said that his party is always keen to forge an alliance with like-minded parties to oust the BJP from power.
Banerjee said that leaders and workers of the Congress are joining his party as they feel that this party is only able to fight back against the BJP.
Hitting out at the Sarma government, he said: “Double-engine government means ‘Double-Chori’. Go and ask the Assam government what it has done for the people of Assam. People still have to visit Kolkata for medical treatment. If Didi (Bengal CM Mamta Banerjee) can do it in Bengal, she can do the same for Assam.”
Refuting the “myth of Achhe Din”, he said, “The BJP government is busy making movies tax free and hiking petrol prices.
“They (BJP) are hiking the price of essential medicines and making movies tax free. The Assam CM is going to watch movies, while the common man keeps suffering.”
Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha members Sushmita Dev and Santanu Sen, and party’s Assam unit President Ripun Bora accompanied Banerjee.
–IANS