Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) agitators’ dress saying it is for the first time that she is hearing that a person’s identity can be known from his sartorial appearance.
Taking a dig at the PM in a massive anti-CAA rally for the second day on Tuesday, Mamata said, “Some people while referring to some incidents in Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia said they could tell the agitators’ background from their dresses … This is for the first time I am hearing about such extraordinary capacity. I am wearing a sari. Now can anyone tell me about my background? At least I cannot do.”
“In a democratic country like India food and dress are one’s personal choice not to be interfered with,” she said blaming the BJP-led Government for throwing India into a turmoil.
Condemning the alleged “police excesses” inside Jamia, Mamata said, “In Bengal too we sometime face such situations where the students do some excess. But we ignore them because they are just our children. They are bacchhas (child)… and deserve some liberty. I have never heard of such police brutalities being conducted inside a university campus.”
Attacking the Centre for bringing the “blackest law of all” in order to divide the country along communal lines “for political gains”, Mamata reiterated her stance of not allowing CAA or National Register for Citizenship (NRC) in Bengal.
“I am ready to fight alone. I have come to this place through street fights and I am still prepared to go down to the streets and start a fresh movement but I will never allow CAA or NRC in Bengal,” she said accusing the Centre for victimising Bengal for standing united against the “draconian law.”
Asking the people to wear badges marking anti-CAA slogans, Banerjee said throughout the State the people will wear such badges from tomorrow.
Wondering how the elderly people will manage birth certificates as in those days many people were born at home she said, “Where will we find out certificates? From where will we get land records? Those who don’t have property what will they do?”
Accusing the Centre for wrongly discontinuing train services in parts of Bengal, she said, “For a few small incidents here and there they have stopped all the train services in Bengal. Very few trains are plying. Some goons have torched some trains… but it was the duty of the Railways to save its properties.
What was the Railway Protection Force doing? Even I helped them with my police force. Now to take revenge on the local people they have stopped train services causing great hardship to the people of Bengal.”
At least five empty rakes were torched by angry protesters at Krishnapur-Rezinagar in Murshidabad district on Sunday.
Incidentally violent agitation continued on Tuesday too but with reduced intensity. Though ferocity of the protests against CAA stymied down a little on the fifth day on Tuesday, reports of road blockades still trickled in from various parts of Bengal cutting off both train and road connection between North and South Bengal and affecting traffic in the remaining parts of the State.
At least 70 trains were not running in various routes, Railway sources said adding they were trying their best to restore normalcy. The Divisional Railway Manager at Malda said properties worth Rs 25 crore had been damaged in his division alone where people at Bhaluka Road Railway Station vandalized the station premises on Monday.
Train services were affected due to blockades at Diamond Harbour in South 24 Parganas while NH 34 was blockaded at Dhubulia in Nadia district.” Agitators raised slogans against the new Citizenship Act at Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district.
The police had stepped up vigil across the state and as many as 354 protesters were arrested for violence prompting the BJP to wonder why only 354 people were arrested when there were more or less a thousand incidents involving several thousand people jamming roads, railways and vandalizing public properties.
Marveling at the “sense of magnitude” of the Chief Minister when it came to violence and vandalism State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said “she is calling it one or two incidents when public properties worth 1,700 crore have been destroyed. At least 70 buses costing Rs 30-35 crore have been torched. How much more destruction she needed to call it a big incident.”
The people of Bengal in fact had learnt vandalism from the Chief Minister. “They learn it all from her when as an opposition leader she had attacked State Assembly and vandalized its interiors destroying properties worth several lakhs of rupees.”
Meanwhile both the BJP and the Left took out their respective rallies on Tuesday with the former backing the CAA and the latter condemning it.