JOIN USAfter its MPs and MLAs were detained at Silchar Airport in Assam, the Trinamool Congress on Thursday alleged that the BJP-led government had imposed a “super emergency” in the country.
“This is super emergency,” Trinamool Congress member in Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien, told journalists in New Delhi after party MPs and MLAs were detained soon after landing in Assam to meet people left out of the recently published draft National Register of Citizens. He criticised the BJP-led governments in Assam and at the Centre and alleged that TMC leaders, including women, were roughed up by police at Silchar Airport.
Saugata Roy, TMC MP in Lok Sabha, told the House that he would move a notice for a privilege motion on Friday against the state government for stopping the MPs from meeting people.
O'Brien alleged that the party's Chief Whip in Rajya Sabha, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, who uses a pacemaker, was also roughed up.
The Trinamool Congress has been at the forefront of the Opposition protest against the BJP-led government on the issue of about 40 lakh people being left out of the draft NRC in Assam.
No breach
Party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday sent a delegation – comprising six party MPs as well as an MLA and a minister of West Bengal – to visit Barak Valley in southern Assam, where many of the people left out of the draft NRC live. As soon as they landed at the airport at Kumbhigram in Silchar, they were not allowed by local police to go out. Citing apprehensions that their visit could disturb law and order, the police also said that prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC were in place after the draft NRC was published.
“MPs and MLAs are lawmakers. They are not law-breakers. Yet they have not been allowed to meet the people left out of the draft NRC,” O'Brien said. He said the TMC MPs and MLAs had planned to break up into four groups of two members each and meet people without flouting prohibitory orders.