Mamata Banerjee said the process of linking phone numbers with Aadhaar violates privacy.
Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of Bengal, announced today that she would rather have her phone disconnected than submit to the new rule requiring every citizen to link their Aadhaar card number to their mobile number.
"I will not link Aadhaar with my phone, if they want to disconnect my phone, let them," Ms Banerjee said defiantly, addressing her Trinamool Congress party's core committee meeting.
All phone users have to link their Aadhaar card numbers to their mobile phones to avoid disconnection, a government notice said in March. The Aadhaar number is also essential for subscribers going for new SIMs.
Ms Banerjee said the process violates privacy.
"There is something called privacy," she said and quipped: "Don't link your Aadhaar to your phones, or else husbands will not be able to talk to their wives in peace."
The Chief Minister accused the ruling BJP of autocratic rule and said her party "will have to play a role so that BJP is removed from power" at the centre.
"No one can raise voice against them, else Income Tax, Enforcement Directorate, CBI will be unleashed," Ms Banerjee alleged.
She declared that her party would protest even if every leader was sent to jail.
"We are not cowards," she said.
Ms Banerjee has asked workers across Bengal and other states where her party has a presence to observe a Black Day on November 8, the anniversary of demonetisation.
"Notebandi, who did it benefit? Only those who wanted to turn black money white. Four top economists -- P Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh, Arun Shourie and Yashwant Singh -- have said notebandi was a disaster. Are they all wrong," she said.
On GST, too, Ms Banerjee attacked the BJP government saying 50 per cent businesses had not been able to use the system to upload their details. "That means the system is faulty. Why the hurry to implement it? GST and demonetisation have shut down businesses and cost jobs."
Today's core committee was the first after her erstwhile right-hand man, Mukul Roy, quit Trinamool earlier this month and is set to join the BJP in November. But Ms Banerjee spent virtually no time on him. "This is a party of sacrifice. MPs, MLAs have risen to their positions on the basis of nothing. They have worked for it and for the party. If someone can't understand that, they have no place in our party," she said.