Didi slams Himanta over mother tongue ‘persecution threat'
Mamata Banerjee
said on Saturday, stressing that she stood by the "people of Assam who are fighting for dignity of their language, identity and democratic rights".
Banerjee, referring to Assam CM
Himanta Biswa Sarma
's recent comment that "writing Bengali as mother tongue will help quantify foreigners", posted on X: "The second most spoken language in the country, Bangla, is also the second most spoken language of Assam. To threaten citizens who want to coexist peacefully respecting all languages and religions with persecution for upholding their own mother tongue is discriminatory and unconstitutional."
This "divisive agenda of BJP in Assam has crossed all limits and people of Assam will fight back", Banerjee said.
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The Bengal CM's statement comes a day after PM Narendra Modi told a Durgapur rally that "for BJP, Bengali 'asmita' is at the highest pedestal". "People of Bengal get respect wherever there is BJP. We will not allow a conspiracy against Bengal's 'asmita'. It is Modi's guarantee," he said.
Banerjee's strongly worded statements looked like a throwback to her 2018 comments on Assam when Hindu Bengalis were being incarcerated under NRC.
Back then, Trinamool had protested strongly against it both in Bengal and in Parliament. Recalling the days of the "Bongal kheda" (throw out Bengalis) campaign in Assam in the 1960s, '70s and '80s — which led to a massive migration of Bengalis from the state to Bengal — the CM had 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 it. We can't be mere onlookers.
I warn BJP not to play with fire. We will not spare them if people come under attack."
Sarma, debunking TMC claims, argued earlier this week that the recent drives were only against "illegal Bangladeshi Muslims" which, he claimed, threatened Assam's demography. But Trinamool questioned this logic.
TMC spokesperson Debangshu Bhattacharya argued: "You claim your govt only targets 'illegal Bangladeshi Muslims'. But in the final NRC list, out of the 19.6 lakh people excluded, 12 lakh were Bengali Hindus. Was their faith the problem too? Or was it their language? You say your crusade isn't against Bengalis. Then how do you explain the fact that all but four of the 30 people who died in Assam's detention centres were Bengali-speaking?"
TMC's Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, who heads the party in Assam, said: "As always, BJP's last trick in the bag in a state where it is losing ground is division among the peace-loving people of Assam. Double-engine sarkar has given us a state neck deep in debt, corruption, failed NRC, failed CAA, no resolution to solve infiltration, no respect for laws or human rights, only oppression, fear and communalism. United, we have to reject this regressive politics.
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