By PTI
KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday took a dig at the BJP-led government at the Centre for its attempt to introduce the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) in the country and said it was an attempt to “snatch away” the rights of the common man.
She said the Centre is selling off the country by disinvesting governmental concerns and expressed concern over a lot of the people in the situation.
“Farmers are not getting the minimum support price and they (the Centre) are selling Railways, SAIL, Air India, Coal India and everything. If the country itself is sold, then how will its people survive?,” Banerjee said at a state government programme where freehold title deeds were handed over to eligible refugee families.
Keeping up her condemnation of the BJP, the TMC supremo, who is one of its strident critics, said “They (the BJP) do not give people their rights, on the contrary take them away in the name of NRC and NPR. We (TMC) do not snatch away the rights of the people because we believe that it is the Constitution which has given it,” she added.
Banerjee said that people in the country were not getting justice and attempts were being carried out to “alter” the country’s history and demolish its heritage.
“People do not get justice…They are being told lies. The history of the country is being altered suddenly, heritage is being demolished. Women, minorities, SCs, STs and OBCs are being tortured. There are attempts to make people forget the original root of the Hindu religion,” she said.
The chief minister was also critical about the Centre’s role in combating Covid-19 and alleged that the countrywide vaccination drive was delayed by it.
“You (Centre) are not ashamed that so many lives were lost in the pandemic. You delayed providing vaccines to the people. On the certificates for Covid vaccinations you are printing (PM) Modiji’s photographs. And then you are taking credit for vaccinating the people!” she said.
Questioning the spending of the PM Care Fund has been spent, Banerjee said that the Centre was not paying the states their dues.
“You (the Centre) give funds to the state from the taxpayers’ money and that also not on time. We (Bengal) are yet to receive Rs 80,000-90,000 crore,” she said.
The feisty leader also fired a fresh salvo at the Centre’s central vista project and the hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate in New Delhi, which she said, has gone “missing”.
“In Delhi the BJP is destroying everything. They had recently put up a hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose but now even that is not there,” she mocked.
