The ‘NRC-issue’ – national register of citizens for enlisting all Indian citizens – that, apparently, had a major impact on West Bengal’s voters in the recent past elections, has reemerged in state’s politics with the rural polls this year, and the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The BJP leadership in Bengal, responding to the invoking of the issue by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee in her recent speeches, has said that Muslims in the state have begun to see through the ‘provocation’, and have, so far, refrained from stepping into it.
Sukanta Majumdar, BJP-Bengal president, on Friday, said that the Centre, as of now, has no plan of implementing the NRC, and there’ no notification concerning the issue. He claimed that Banerjee’s talking about the issue is to recreate situations similar to yesteryears when major protests were witnessed surrounding the issue that had got highly politicised. “But, I will thank Muslims of Bengal, that they have, so far, not stepped into CM’s provocation,” Majumdar said.
Majumdar alleged that whenever an election approaches, Banerjee during her visits to Muslim localities try to frighten them by talking about NRC. “Earlier, she frightened people with both – CAA, and NRC. Now having understood that CAA will happen, today or tomorrow, she’s taking NRC to the Muslim society…,” he said.
The BJP state president claimed that the fright is being generated as Muslims are distancing themselves from the Trinamool Congress which is said to have strong support of the community. “Muslims have understood that they are being repeatedly misled, and being seen as a vote-bank, and not as individuals. The day the (Muslim) society understands this, there will be progress,” he said.
Speaking in Malda on Thursday, the chief minister had spoken about a letter from the Union home minister that named a few border areas. “I dare BJP… Neither me nor my Trinamool Congress government will allow NRC to happen,” Banerjee had said. The NRC, lately, is finding mention in Banerjee’s speeches.