Will oppose CAA if it is biased and aims at usurping people’s rights: Mamata

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she would fiercely oppose the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) if she found it to be discriminatory against groups of people living in India and if it curtailed their existing citizenship rights in any manner.

Speaking at a hurriedly convened press conference at the state secretariat, barely minutes before the CAA rules were officially notified by the Centre, Banerjee said this was her “primary response” based on media reports that the announcement was likely to be made soon.

Banerjee stated she would offer her detailed opinion on CAA on Tuesday after thoroughly going through the notification and the finalised rules.

Questions timing

She asked, “Why do this only days before the Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be announced? Why did the Centre have to wait for four years to notify the law after it was passed in Parliament? The Centre should have published the notification before leaking it to the press...Why wait for the sundown? This, after all, is not freedom at midnight.”

Stating that people living in India already enjoyed guaranteed rights to education, property ownership and electing public representatives, Banerjee said she apprehended that the CAA could be used as a possible precursor to implementing NRC across the nation.

“We will oppose NRC implementation at all costs. I am only worried as to whether the new CAA rules would make the previous entitlements of our citizens invalid. Will the documents they hold lose value now?” the TMC chief wondered.

The Centre on Monday announced the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, a move that comes four years after the contentious law was passed and paves the way for citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The rules were notified days ahead of the expected announcement of the Lok Sabha elections.

‘Bid to deceive people’

“What was the tearing hurry to rethink citizenship when elections are knocking on the door,” the Trinamool Congress supremo asked.

Banerjee said her concerns stemmed from the fact that the previous law (NRC) aimed at “nullifying the existing rights of citizens. I consider this to be an attempt to hoodwink and deceive the people”.

Calling the Centre’s move a “show off” and akin to “offering a lollypop to a kid”, Banerjee questioned the effective use of the possible online portal through which CAA applications could be made. “Will the system work?” the chief minister asked.

‘Sensitive issue for Bengal’

She said that the alleged attempts to cancel the Aadhaar cards of Matua and other Namasudra community members in West Bengal were a “ploy” to lend credence to the CAA notification.

“We had understood that conspiracy in advance and called it out,” she said, in an apparent reference to the protest letter on deactivated Aadhaar cards she shot off to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month. Stating that the CAA and the NRC are sensitive to not just Bengal but also to the northeastern states, Banerjee said she doesn't want unrest before the Lok Sabha elections.

“The BJP is forcefully provoking the people before the polls,” she declared. “We ask the people to not worry about their rights. Trinamool will be the first party to raise its voice and actively resist any attempt to curtail them,” she said.

(With agency inputs)