West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged the Border Security Force (BSF) was issuing separate identity cards to people living along the Bangladesh border while urging them to reject these documents as their names would be deleted from the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
“Who has fought against the NRC?” she asked at a gathering in Cooch Behar. She added the issue of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA issue was also being raked up again for electoral politics.
The comments came hours after Union minister Shantanu Thakur said the CAA would be implemented within a week. Thakur, who belongs to the Matua community, was one of the 18 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha members elected from West Bengal in 2019.
The Matua support is believed to have helped the BJP expand its base in West Bengal. The community is expected to benefit the most from CAA implementation. Part of the Dalit Namasudra community that migrated from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1947 and during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, the Matuas form a sizeable chunk of voters in the north and south Bengal districts bordering Bangladesh.
The CAA was passed in 2019 to fast-track the citizenship process for non-Muslims, who have entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh before December 31, 2014. A year earlier, a process in Assam to detect undocumented immigrants led to the exclusion of around two million people from NRC.
The CAA triggered protests with its opponents insisting it was discriminatory and unconstitutional as it left out the Muslims and linked faith to citizenship in a secular country.
The Union government has granted repeated extensions for framing rules for the CAA. Eligible people can submit applications for Indian citizenship under it once the rules are notified.
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has opposed the CAA labelling it “divisive”. Banerjee has maintained the CAA would not be implemented in West Bengal.
Union home minister Amit Shah last month reiterated that the implementation of CAA, which has been a major electoral issue for the BJP in West Bengal, was inevitable while accusing Banerjee of misleading people.
Banerjee told her audience in Cooch Behar that they were all Indian citizens. “We have given recognition to refugee colonies by issuing land deeds. Without being citizens, how they enjoy government facilities and vote,” she said while asking people to lodge police complaints against the BSF.
“The BSF is torturing people. The BSF is issuing separate identity cards for people living in border areas. Do not accept them. Tell them that you have Aadhaar and ration cards and you do not need the fake card. If you accept cards your name will be deleted from the NRC,” said Banerjee, who is on a five-day trip to districts.
Ahead of the 2021 assembly elections, the TMC complained to the Election Commission of India that the BSF was threatening villagers. The BSF denied the charges.
The TMC also opposed the move to increase the BSF’s jurisdiction from 15 km to 50 km of the border. Banerjee raised the issue during her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2021. The BSF did not immediately react to Banerjee’s fresh remarks in Cooch Behar.
Samik Bhattacharya, a BJP spokesperson, hit out at Banerjee saying there was no difference between her statements and those of a separatist. “Her statements will encourage anti-India forces.”
