TMC, Congress and Left Front join hands to block NRC in West Bengal; BJP to oppose resolution 'tooth and nail' on floor of Assembly

Kolkata: BJP will oppose “tooth and nail” the resolution against NRC to be brought by ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Opposition Congress and Left Front jointly in the West Bengal Assembly, a saffron party leader said on Thursday. The joint resolution will be brought in the Assembly on Friday in a bid to corner BJP. The BJP leader hit out at TMC, the saffron party’s most caustic opponent, for behaving “like anti-nationals” by opposing the National Register of Citizens in Assam. “The entire exercise on NRC in Assam was done as per orders of the Supreme Court. BJP had nothing to do with it except that it supported the exercise which was executed to drive out infiltrators from Assam. It was in the national interest, but TMC is opposing it just to appease it’s minority vote bank,” BJP state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said. [caption id=“attachment_4880341” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. PTI[/caption] “The intention in bringing the resolution is to malign BJP. We will oppose the resolution tooth and nail in the floor of the Assembly. We don’t have the numbers, but we will register our protest. Both Mamata Banerjee and the Congress has forgotten their past – that they had opposed illegal Bangladeshi infiltration,” he said. BJP has only six MLAs in the 294-member House, far behind 211 held by TMC. The rest of the seats are held by the Left parties and the Congress. Majumdar referred to an incident in the Lok Sabha in 2005 when Mamata as TMC MP had tried to raise the issue of illegal infiltration in West Bengal. On being denied permission she had thrown papers at the then Lok Sabha deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal. “Mamata Banerjee had then opposed illegal intrusion from Bangladesh as the infiltrators were used as vote bank then by the CPM-led Left Front and now TMC is using infiltrators as its vote bank. This is why TMC has taken such an anti-national stand by opposing NRC. Congress too should not forget it was Rajiv Gandhi who as prime minister had signed the Assam Accord in 1985, in which NRC was one of the main clauses. But now it is opposing NRC,” Majumdar said. Assam is the only state in the country to have the updated NRC, which is a validation of Indian citizenship in the north eastern state. The NRC is a register maintained by the government of India containing names and certain relevant information for identification of all genuine Indian citizens. The register was first prepared after the 1951 Census of India. BJP legislative party leader Manoj Tigga said his party will oppose the resolution. “The NRC has been published keeping in mind national security to drive out infiltrators. If the TMC, Congress and Left Front are opposing it then they are working against the interests of the country,” he added.