Kolkata: In an interview to PTI, Kailash Vijayvargiya, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national general secretary, said that if voted to power in Bengal, the party will not take up any exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said the opposition Trinamool Congress was wrong in saying that the party will be “taking away the citizenship rights of people”.
The party’s Bengal minder, however, said that BJP intends to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and provide rights to (non-Muslim) refugees who fled religious persecution in neighbouring countries and moved to India.
“We are only looking forward to implementing the CAA after the elections, as promised in the manifesto. It is an important issue for us, as we strive to grant citizenship to the persecuted refugees. We do not have any plan of conducting the NRC exercise, even if we win the elections,” he said.
Accusing the TMC of “running a disinformation campaign against the saffron camp, the 64-year-old leader asked why the ruling party in the state is opposing the CAA, which could be of benefit to many.
Bengal has a sizeable population of Matuas, who had been migrating to the state since the 1950s, primarily due to religious persecution. The community, with its three million members, influences at least four Lok Sabha seats and 30-40 assembly seats in Nadia, North and South-24 Parganas.
Also read: Modi’s Bangladesh Temple Visits Stir Memories of a Bengal Marked by Religious Syncretism
Training his guns on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her assertion that the “Election Commission was working at the behest of the BJP“, Vijayvargiya, said it was an irony that the TMC boss pointed no finger at the poll panel when her party registered two successive electoral victories.
Calling Banerjee’s claims “foolish”, he said the TMC, sensing defeat, is levelling absurd allegations against the saffron party.
“Mamata Banerjee never felt that the EC was acting partially when she won the polls. The irony is that when you were winning the elections, everything seems fine. Once you start sensing defeat, you blame the EC and the electronic voting machines,” he said.
Exuding confidence that the BJP will sweep the assembly elections, with more than 200 seats in its kitty, Vijayvargiya also downplayed insinuations that the party could be at a disadvantage for not having projected a chief ministerial face in Bengal, and said “several leaders are capable of taking the reins of the state” and a decision would be taken only after the polls.
Asked whether the rift between old-timers and newcomers over ticket distribution has been reined in, he said everyone in the party will have to abide by the rules and regulations laid down by the top brass.
(With PTI inputs)