Mamata Banerjee's party had vehemently opposed the Citizens' List
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the BJP government at the Centre on Monday for planning to introduce the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), 2019 in Parliament and said the proposed legislation is a "trap" like the National Register of Citizen (NRC) to exclude Bengalis and Hindus as legal citizens of the country.
The CAB 2019 is expected to be introduced in the winter session of parliament, which began today.
She also criticised the Centre for failing to revive the Indian economy. Ms Banerjee said the government is only interested in selling out PSUs like Air India instead of taking steps to revive it.
"The Centre is planning to bring in CAB but let me tell you it is just another trap like the NRC. It is a trap to exclude Bengalis and Hindus from the list of legal citizens and make them refugees in their own countries," she said.
The bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and Buddhists from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after they have stayed in India for seven years even if they do not possess any documents.
"After our government came to power we had taken steps to grant citizenship to refugees of enclaves in Coochbehar district. But we had never imposed any condition that they have to be in this country for six years," Mamata Banerjee said.
The proposed implementation of National Register of Citizens in Bengal has turned into a flash point with the Trinamool Congress government vehemently opposing it.
It created a panic among residents and claimed 11 lives in the state after about 19.6 lakh names were omitted from the final list in Assam.
Majority of the names omitted from the list were allegedly of Hindus and Bengali Hindus.