Leader of the Opposition in Bengal Assembly Abdul Mannan and leader of Left Front Legislature Party Sujan Chakraborty today submitted a proposal to Speaker Biman Bandopadhaya demanding a discussion on the “discriminatory” Citizenship Amendment Act and “offending” portions of Citizenship Act at the daylong session of the House on Thursday.

“After chief minister Mamata Banerjee have opposed Bharat Bandh tomorrow seeking scrapping of the CAA and other issues, we demand a resolution banning the CAA and “offending” sections of the Citizenship Act and we would like to see how the Treasury benches react to our proposal, the Congress and front leaders said. On 30 December Kerala state Assembly had sent a request to the Centre for scrapping the CAA, Mannan said.

We should follow this example, Chakraborty added. The proposal comes a day after PCC chief Somen Mitra had accused the chief minister of doublespeak for having opposed the CAA and also opposing the bandh. Describing the proposal of discussion to be an opportunity to show the true colours of Trinamul Congress, Mannan said the state government is trying to upset all anti- CAA agitations.

The chief minister is contending that she is opposed to CAA and yet her officers are denying us permission to bring out rallies against the divisive Act, Chakraborty said. If Miss Banerjee opposes communalism, her administrative functionaries would have acted otherwise, he felt. I seek to refresh the chief minister’s memory about a bandh during the Left Front regime after some people died in police firing at Sealdah station, the leader of the Opposition said.

The then chief minister, Jyoti Basu had said that he cannot support the bandh as administrative head of the state, but government buses won’t ply on the bandh day. Given the trend of affairs, along with Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Union home minister, Amit Shah the other person who would rejoice at the failure of the bandh will be the chief minister of this state, Chakraborty said.

We have long been saying that Trinamul is the B-team of BJP in this state, he alleged. In all, eight Trinamul MPs did not vote in the parliament on the CAA issue, while one of them had said that he had done so on the chief minister’s instruction, Mannan said. We do not know what disciplinary action has been taken by the Trinamul leadership against these MPs. The chief minister did not even raise the NRC issue when he met the Prime Minister, Mannan said. This shows her keenness to tackle the issue properly, he said.