Told PM we won't accept CAA: Mamata.. NOTIFICATION WILL REMAIN ON PAPER

TT, 12 January 2020, Kolkata: Calcutta: Mamata Banerjee on Saturday reaffirmed her resistance to the BJP's citizenship regime, dismissing the notification of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and criticising Narendra Modi at a sit-in at Esplanade within an hour of meeting the Prime Minister at Raj Bhavan. 

Even as slogans were raised against her at various places in Calcutta for allegedly colluding with Modi and betraying the movement against the citizenship regimen, the chief minister sought to clear the air by asserting that she met the Prime Minister out of "constitutional courtesy". From the meeting with Modi, Mamata headed for the indefinite sit-in of the Trinamul Congress's students' wing, the first of her two visits. 

"The Prime Minister is here in the city, I told him that we will not accept the CAA, nor the NPR, nor the NRC…. The Trinamul Congress will keep fighting, alongside the other regional forces. We will fight together, whoever wants us will get us," Mamata said at the Rani Rashmoni Avenue demonstration. "Students and youths are the pride of this nation…. I express my great solidarity and full support for all students and youths for their movement…. The battle is against the CAA, against the NRC, against inhumanity, against brutality, against atrocities. Bengal always did, always will, stand by you," the chief minister added. Mamata said the CAA notification issued by the Centre on Friday would not be implemented. "Yesterday, out of hubris, the central government issued the notification. It will remain on paper only. That will never be effective, for as long as the people of the country refuse to accept it. We here, we will never implement it. This is our conviction," she added to loud cheers.

Mamata said those in power at the Centre should not do as they please simply because they have the majority in the Lok Sabha.

"Those who stay asleep despite being awake, nobody can wake them up…. Copies of the notification, we will all do katakuti, ghnyach-ghnoch. You made it, we discarded it. This is the power of the people in a secular democracy," she said.

In an anonymous jibe at Modi, Mamata pointed out that she lives by the ideals of Swami Vivekananda daily, round the year.

"Tomorrow is Swamiji's birth anniversary. Some come running from Delhi, to take the opportunity of the day to glorify themselves. We wake with his name, legacy and ideals, we go to sleep with them, 365 days a year," she said, in an apparent reference to Modi's plan to visit Belur.

"Those making tall claims now, remind them, Swami Vivekananda was a Hindu. A Hindu of global humanism. The religion that welcomes all, embraces all, does not harbour negativity towards anybody," Mamata added.

In an apparent attack at the Congress and the Left -- both have been bitterly critical of her since she announced her decision against attending the national Opposition's meeting in Delhi on Monday called by Sonia Gandhi and her meeting Modi in Calcutta -- Mamata said she did not need certificates from alleged political opportunists whom she accused of having done nothing to strengthen the movement against the BJP's citizenship regimen.

"Some fishing in muddied waters, play-acting, they are the biggest touts of the BJP. We are not with them," she said..