Kolkata: Slamming the central government on Assam’s draft National Register of Citizens which left out more than four million people, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the Narendra Modi-led government of doing “vote politics”.
The first complete draft of the NRC, comprising names of more than 29 million people of Assam, was published on Monday and 4,007,707 have been left out due to some discrepancies in their documents, according to officials.
- Mamata Banerjee | Bengal Chief Minister
Banerjee alleged that people having Aadhaar card, voter identity and others documents were excluded as the authorities were “not satisfied”. She raised concerns that there would be problems in Bangladesh and West Bengal as it shares border with the northeastern state. The Bengal chief minister also alleged that the Modi government was trying to evict people “forcibly”.
“Four million people including Hindus and Muslims were left out. All connections including internet have been disconnected which is unfortunate. Why were connections cut? We are not able to contact them. Is it an attempt to bulldoze them? It is a game plan to evict humanity and human beings forcibly and an attempt to isolate them in order to do vote politics. We do not believe in divide and rule policy,” Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat.
She further said: “The people who have been left out were made refugees by the Assam and central governments. Many people submitted all the documents. Yet, they were not considered, just excluded. Some of them are staying for more than 50 years.”
Banerjee, who is going to Delhi for a slew of meetings, said she will seek an appointment with Home Minister Rajnath Singh. “I appeal to the central government and the Home Minister not to do politics there and consider them on humanitarian ground. The central government can bring amendment and bills in Parliament to protect them.”
