Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making statements that were not in sync with the ones made on the National Register for Citizens (NRC) by Home Minister Amit Shah.
Getting even with the Prime Minister who earlier on Sunday attacked the Chief Minister for suggesting a United Nations-monitored referendum on Citizenship Amendment Act and NRC, Mamata said, “Whatever I said is there in public forum, whatever you said is there for the people to judge.”
“The PM is contradicting the Home Minister publicly on nationwide NRC,” she said. “Who is dividing the fundamental idea of India? People will definitely decide who is right and who is wrong.”
Senior Bengal Minister and Trinamool Congress general secretary Partho Chatterjee said how Shah was repeatedly insisting that the NRC will be conducted all over the country, while Modi was proffering an apology of the SC order for invoking NRC in Assam.
The immediate context of Mamata’s making a strong statement against the PM was his sharp speech in Delhi where he accused the CM of proposing to take the CAA and the NRC issue to the United Nations referring to how she had on Friday said there should be a UN-monitored referendum on the issue.”
Against strong opposition from the BJP, Mamata subsequently clarified her stand saying she had only said UNO and Human Rights Commission were dependable bodies and that the experts should think about organising an opinion poll on the issue and the UN and Human Rights Commission should keep a watch on it.
The BJP took out several rallies in Bengal supporting the CAA-NRC. BJP party president Dilip Ghosh said, “Without going into details of the Act parties like the Congress, the Left and the TMC are trying to instigate the people and create a division among the Indians. “They have not read the Act and descended on the streets to create a divide amongst the Indians by spreading a disinformation campaign.”