'State rivalries shouldn't stop us defending democracy'

Yechury also slammed the Bengal government for preventing the passage of an anti-CAA resolution in the assembly

Local differences and rivalries at the state level should not come in the way of defending democracy, said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury while taking a dig at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for boycotting an Opposition meeting on the CAA.

Banerjee, while speaking in the state Assembly on Thursday, said she will not attend the meeting convened by Congress President Sonia Gandhi here on January 13. Her decision was in protest against the violence allegedly carried out by the Congress and Left in the state during the nationwide trade union strike on January 8.

"The defence of India's secular democracy in the face of sinister attacks by RSS/BJP is the task of every patriot. No differences or rivalries at local & state levels should come in the way to defend our Constitution. We, in Kerala have shown how this struggle should be conducted," Yechury tweeted late last night.

"It is strange that the West Bengal government has rejected a Resolution, suggested by Left parties and Congress in the Business Advisory Committee, against the CAA/NRC/NPR this morning," he said.

Earlier, Banerjee said in the House that since the Assembly had adopted a resolution against a pan-India NRC in September last year, which also denounced according Indian citizenship to people on the basis of religion, there was no need for a fresh resolution.