CM warns against Assam ‘Bongal kheda’ rerun , asks party MPs to protest

AHMADPUR (BIRBHUM): Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has thrown her weight behind the Bengalis in Assam who are scared of losing their citizenship rights after the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and has asked all Trinamool MPs to lodge a protest outside Parliament on Thursday. The NRC is the latest in Banerjee’s arsenal against the BJP’s “divisive politics”, after demonetisation and the FRDI Bill.
The Trinamool Parliamentary Party has urged all members to assemble near the Gandhi statue near Parliament House at 10.30am on Thursday. “We will register our protest against such discrimination outside Parliament. We will also take up the issue in both the Houses,” said Trinamool Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien.
Recalling the days of the “Bongal kheda” campaign in Assam in the 1960s and ’70s, which led to a massive migration of Bengalis from the state to Bengal, the CM said: “It has made a comeback. Bengalis are being driven out of Assam. It will have an impact on Bengal because our state shares a border with Assam. We can’t be mere onlookers. I warn BJP not to play with fire. We will not spare them if people come under attack.”
But unlike in the past, when this campaign was restricted to the northeast, this time, people from Bengal have come under attack in other BJP-ruled states as well, hinted the CM.
“It happened in Gujarat, it happened in Rajasthan and now it is happening in Assam. But why? Don’t people from Bengal have the right to work and settle in other states? There are many people from neighbouring states in Bengal. We have played a good host all the time,” the chief minister said, sending out signals that she will take up the issue big time in the days to come.
The rising insecurity among resident Bengalis when the new Citizenship Act puts the onus on the individual to prove his identity may lead to an exodus of Bengalis from Assam to the northern parts of Bengal. State officials fear that the influx may upset the balance of in-migration from other states and out-migration to other states from Bengal, which had to bear the burden of the largest number of refugees during Partition.
The government has come across cases where some resident Bengalis have recorded their mother tongue as Assamese to get rid of the “Bangladeshi tag” put on them by the Assam Police.