CM reels off NRC figures

TT, Calcutta: Mamata Banerjee claimed on Tuesday that 25 lakh Hindu Bengalis and 13 lakh Muslim Bengalis were among 40 lakh people whose names had been left out of the final draft of the National Register of Citizens in Assam, reiterating that it was an "anti-Bengali" exercise.

Three days ago, BJP national president Amit Shah told a rally at Mayo Road here that the NRC exercise was an attempt to weed out "Bangladeshi infiltrators" and attacked Mamata for her resistance to the exercise.

On Tuesday, the Bengal chief minister asked if Shah himself would be able to furnish a key document necessary to prove citizenship under the NRC parameters.

"Does Amit Shah have his father's birth certificate? I know I don't.... Had I not been born in Bengal, I, too, would have been branded as an infiltrator," Mamata told a news conference at Nabanna.

"Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's family might have birth certificates of forefathers, I am not sure about Gandhiji. How does any common man hold on to birth certificates of several generations?" she asked before adding whether BJP veterans like L.K. Advani or Atal Behari Vajpayee had the relevant documents with them.

Citing figures from Bengali United Forum of Assam, a conglomerate of 14 Bengali groups in the north-eastern state, Mamata said 38 lakh out of 40 lakh names left out of the final NRC draft were of Bengalis. A delegation of leaders from the forum met Mamata on Tuesday.

"There are 25 lakh Hindu Bengalis, 13 lakh Muslim Bengalis and two lakh names are of Biharis, Marwaris and Nepalis. What does that tell you? If this game is played in other states, will it be good for us?" she asked.

The Bengal chief minister used several examples from a field study by the forum and said names of many were deleted despite their participation in elections since 1965.

On Saturday, sticking to the BJP's agenda, Shah had chosen to distinguish between non-Muslim refugees and others. On Tuesday, Mamata sought to punch holes into that line of argument, asserting that even Hindus were not being spared in Assam.

Mamata said legal citizens, living with valid documents for generations in the country, were being branded as infiltrators and rendered refugees in their own land overnight, allegedly for the sake of the BJP's attempt to reap political dividend from the exercise in the run-up to next year's general elections.

"Sometimes it is the NRC, sometimes it is Indo-Pak tension, sometimes it is Indo-China conflict. There is some issue like that they raise," she said.