Rally in Bengal from November 15 against NRC The rally will start from Darjeeling and it will conclude at Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas on December 8

TT, 5.11.19, Calcutta: The Joint Forum Against NRC, a conglomerate of apolitical mass organisations, has announced a rally across Bengal to protest the BJP-led central government’s plan to carry out the National Register of Citizens exercise throughout the country.

The “Yatra against NRC” will start from Darjeeling and it will conclude at Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas on December 8 after touching a majority of the districts in the state.

Former JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar will flag off the yatra.

“We will start the yatra from Darjeeling on November 15 and it will conclude at Kakdwip on December 8. We also have plans to hold a mega mass rally against the NRC in Calcutta on December 9,” Prasenjit Bose, the convenor of the forum, told a news conference here on Monday.

According to Bose, 50 members of the forum would pass through districts like North and South Dinajpurs, Malda, Murshidabad, East and West Burdwans, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas on a bus during the yatra.

“Our demands include citizenship for 19 lakh NRC-excluded persons in Assam, closure of all detention camps in that state, scrapping of the National Population Register, NRC and the anti-refugee Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003, and withdrawal of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016,” Bose said.

Bose announced a plan to move the Supreme Court if the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was passed in Parliament.

“The CAB is anti-constitutional and communal. It should be withdrawn. If the BJP passes the bill by flexing the muscles in Parliament, we would knock the doors of the apex court against it,” he said.

The convenor of the forum also alleged that politicians claiming that the National Population Register (NPR) was same as the census were actually misguiding people. He claimed that the NPR was the first step towards the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC).

The forum also said political parties opposing the NRC in Bengal should clear their views on the NPR and demand scrapping of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003.

The move to launch the yatra is significant as panic has spread in districts bordering Bangladesh after BJP leaders repeatedly said the NRC would be implemented in Bengal.