Trinamool Congress head and West Bengal State Chief Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said that she will lay down her life but not allow the division of the country.
While speaking at the congregation for Eid namaz in Kolkata’s Red Road area, Banerjee even asked people to unite and ensure that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is defeated in the 2024 parliamentary polls.
Accusing the BJP of trying to change the constitution by implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), the West Bengal State Chief said: “Some people are trying to divide the country and practice politics of hate... I am ready to give my life but will not allow any division of the country.”
Banerjee further added that she is ready to fight the money power of her political opponents and even federal agencies also but will not bow her head. Banerjee’s party has been alleging that federal agencies are being used against its members with a political motive.
Trinamool Congress has been against the CAA, which confers citizenship rights on religious minorities from neighboring countries, and the NRC, which purportedly targets illegal immigration, arguing that existing citizenship records and acts were sufficient.
The CAA aims to fast-track citizenship for six minority communities - Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians - who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014, from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The law passed by Narendra Modi's government received heavy criticism from opposition politicians and ordinary citizens alike.
Meanwhile, the citizenship law, followed by the nationwide NRC, also saw major protests by Muslim women across the country in December 2019. The protesters alleged that the NRC is an attempt by the Hindu-nationalist government to expel Muslims who do not have sufficient documentation. Protests even snowballed into a riot in the national capital Delhi in early 2020, killing at least 50 people.