West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused BJP of interfering in everything. (File)
Continuing her attack on the ruling BJP over the exclusion of 40 lakh people from Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NCR) draft list, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday labelled the party as “the real infiltrator”. ” The real infiltrator is BJP because they are interfering in everything — what you eat what you wear, even interfering in media,” she said.
Mamata called the NRC an “insult” to the neighbouring country Bangladesh. “Bangladeshis are our neighbours, not a terrorist country. Not every Bangladeshi is an infiltrator,” she added. Questioning the exclusion of people, she said she can’t even prove her own family’s rights to reside in Bengal since 1971. “How will I, I don’t even know my parent’s birthday.”
When asked about who will become the prime minister in 2019, Mamata firmly said, “I don’t think about these things, I want my country to go forward.”
Stressing on the opposition unity, she said, “India’s politics was never so dirty as it is today” while adding that BJP should see its end in 2019. She also accused the Centre of pulling out security forces from Maoist areas without consulting the state government.
Earlier today, the BJP youth wing filed a complaint against Mamata Banerjee for her remarks against the NRC, accusing her of inciting “hatred and tension” in the country.
Responding to a question posed by the media on her ‘civil war’ remark, Mamata said she isn’t BJP’s servant to reply to any of their statements. “I didn’t say this (civil war remark), my concern is regarding the 40 lakh people whose names are not on the list (NRC). BJP is politically tensed because they know they won’t come to power in 2019,” she was quoted as saying by ANI.
On Tuesday, Banerjee had warned the BJP that the exclusion of 40 lakh people from the NRC would lead to a “civil war”. “Who are they to decide who can stay in the country and who cannot? This is a ploy to target particular communities, this is to isolate them. At this rate, there will soon be a civil war, a bloodbath. Already, Section 144 has been imposed in the state… Divide and rule are not the politics of India. The politics of India is tolerance. What is happening is very dangerous,” she had said.
Mamata, who is on a three-day visit to Delhi, met UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday as part of her strategy to build a federal front against the Narendra Modi-led BJP government ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.