A fourth FIR has been registered against the current West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, for her inciting speech which warns of ‘civil war and bloodbath’ in Assam over the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) issue.
According to Zee News, the FIR states that Banerjee made an inflammatory speech that was aimed at disrupting communal harmony and order in Assam. Three previous FIRs have been filed against the caustic Chief Minister since Tuesday, when she made the callous remarks.
“The NRC is being done with a political motive. We will not let this happen. They (BJP) are trying to divide the people. The situation cannot be tolerated. There will be a civil war, bloodbath in the country,” Banerjee had said at a conclave of Catholic Bishops in New Delhi on July 31.
A number of political leaders hit out at Banerjee, calling her statement ‘callous’ and communally polarising people.
CM Banerjee, has been among the harshest critic of the NRC. (National Register of Citizens). The first draft of the NRC contained the names of 2.89 crore people out of the 3.29 crore who had applied for the inclusion of their names on the rolls.
Communist Party of India-Marxist State Secretary Surjya Kanta Misra said that the Bharatiya Janata Party and Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress were on the same page on the citizens’ list in the past.
“Banerjee brought forth this idea of NRC to Bengal. We all know her mindset regarding the Bangladesh refugees since 2005. Now she is opposing it (NRC) to promote communal polarisation so that people think that the Trinamool and the BJP are fighting. But actually, their stand on this issue is the same,” Misra alleged.
He alleged that BJP and its allies would not have been able to get a foothold in Bengal without Banerjee’s support.
“The BJP has been trying to do this for a long time. I can recall that they were attempting this even 40 years ago. But they would not have got any foothold in West Bengal without the support of this Chief Minister,” he added.
The controversy erupted when 40 lakh names were excluded from the latest draft. This led to immediate accusations from opposition parties that the BJP was trying to polarise communities. The Congress then changed its stand by saying that even though they support NRC, they are not in agreement with the implementation.
The National Register of Citizens (NRC) had been updated in Assam on the 2014 order of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled only those who had been living in Assam in 1971 could be considered citizens of India.
The demand for updating the NRC in Assam is an old issue which came into being back in the 1980’s when the Assam Accord was signed.
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