West Bengal's Left Front leaders on Sunday demanded that no Indian citizen should be left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and accused the BJP and Trinamool Congress of trying to communally polarise people on the issue.
"We want all the Indians to be registered in the NRC list. Not a single person should be left out. All the Indian citizens among the 40 lakh persons left out of the draft NRC in Assam should be immediately registered," West Bengal Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said.
Accusing Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of opposing the NRC to gain political mileage and promote communal polarisation, 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 said that the 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 will not get any foothold in West Bengal without the support of this Chief Minister," he added.
--IANS
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