Dilip Ghosh says some uneducated women with babies on their lap are sitting at protests. (File)
West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh today said "uneducated men and women" are protesting at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh and Kolkata's Park Circus as they get money and biryani purchased with foreign funds.
"Poor, uneducated men and women have been made to sit on roads. In return, they are receiving money every day. They are being fed biryani bought with foreign funds," Mr Ghosh said while addressing a party meeting in Kolkata.
"Be it Delhi's Shaheen Bagh or Kolkata's Park Circus, the picture is the same everywhere. People like Brinda Karat and P Chidambaram attend these gatherings. Some uneducated women with babies on their lap are sitting there. They are the only audience to them," the BJP MP added.
His comments drew sharp criticism from leaders of both the ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition CPI(M), who claimed that the BJP has started panicking over the ongoing protests against the CAA-NRC-NPR.
"No person with minimum sense of ground reality can make such comments about these women," said CPI(M) politburo member Mohammed Salim.
TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee said such comments reflect the mindset of the BJP.
Mr Ghosh also announced that Union Home Minister Amit Shah is likely to be in Kolkata on March 1 where he will be felicitated by the party for the passage of Citizen (Amendment) Act.
Delhi's Shaheen Bagh is the epicenter of anti-citizenship law protests in the national capital. Hundreds of men, women and children have been protesting there for two months against the citizenship law, which makes religion a test of citizenship and which critics say discriminates against Muslims.
The BJP had targeted Shaheen Bagh over traffic blocks and inconvenience to people.