A day after Mamata Banerjee gave a call to hold a United Nations-monitored referendum on the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register for Citizens, the Bengal Chief Minister on Friday clarified her stand saying she had not meant what was being meted out by her opponents in a tarnished and twisted manner.
Banerjee said she had not meant that there should be a UN-supervised referendum on the CAA-NRC rather “I said the Human Rights Commission and the UN are impartial institutions. They should watch an opinion poll on the issue.”
Her statement came almost in tandem with Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar asking her to take back her remarks because it did not suit a person occupying constitutional post.
The Trinamool Congress supremo also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to listen to the voice of the people and revoke the amended Citizenship Act and drop the plans for implementing the NRC across the nation in the interests of the country.
Banerjee who led yet another procession for the fourth day on Friday before addressing a massive rally at minority-dominated area of Park Circus said “let experts plan the whole process. Let them organise an opinion poll. Let Human Rights Commission take care of the procedure and let the UN watch the proceedings. Let them see whether the people are accepting this (CAA) or not.”
On Thursday, Banerjee while addressing a mass rally had reportedly said that there should be a UN-monitored referendum on the CAA and NRC prompting immediate reactions from the BJP which attacked the Chief Minister calling her an “irresponsible paper unworthy of the constitutional she had been occupying.” The BJP immediately demanded an “apology or resignation” of the Chief Minister.
While Union Minister Babul Supriyo said Banerjee had gone out of her senses “wondering whether her election manager Prashant Kishore has been advising her correctly,” BJP leader Amit Malavya tweeted: “She is the most irresponsible Chief Minister who doesn’t deserve to hold a public office. This is the kind of language Pakistan would speak! Just shows how she is aware of the slipping public support in Bengal…”
The State Governor on the other hand appealed to the Chief Minister to withdraw her statement saying it would send bad signals nationwide. He said “an authority should not seek such an intervention...this does not do any honour to our country,” adding “this does not suit her stature either for the position she holds or the experience she has.”
Dhankhar also said “when honourable Chief Minister made that observation yesterday, I found it was in public domain. I was in deep pain and anguish. Several people called me. I, therefore, went public and appealed to her very firmly and politely that this should be withdrawn,” reminding how the Constitution of the country provides a “very effective mechanism” for dispute resolution of individuals, of the states or between the Union and states.
The Governor and the Chief Minister had been at loggerheads with a host of other issues with Banerjee regularly accusing him of running a parallel Government in the State by trying to hold administrative meetings by-passing the State Government.
Cut to Friday. The Chief Minister continued to attack the BJP asking the Centre to take back its “mischievous Act” aimed at dividing India for political gains and saying “if you do not roll back the black CAA and NRC then you will have to go from power… Do not ignore the people’s voice.”
She said that the “BJP thinks that only they are Indians and the rest are outsiders. They are talking about nationalism. I want to ask them where were they when the Indian leaders were fighting for Independence and where were they when we got our Independence,” and asked “how dare they ask a proof of my citizenship 72 years after the Independence?”
Today, the whole country was in fire she said wondering “who is responsible for this? The whole country is burning: from UP to Bihar to Assam, to Karnataka, to Delhi… no place is in peace. A good Government should first ensure peace. Here they are creating division so that the people fight among themselves and they remain secured behind their security cordons and high boundary walls.”
In response to her vitriolic attack, State BJP president Dilip Ghosh who took out a counter rally at Asansol said the “Chief Minister is worried about CAA because after this, her pocket voters will be de-franchised.
"They will have no ration card, no job card, not trade license, no voter card, no license to work and will be forced to live India. In that circumstances she will lose her priced voters… Remember that the BJP got only 17 lakh less votes that the TMC in the Lok Sabha elections. If her voter army of infiltrators — which amount to about a crore in Bengal — are thrown out then she will lose the elections. So she is making such big noise.”
Meanwhile, Bengal remained largely incident free after five days of continued violence with no major incident of commotion reported from any part of the State.