BJP state president and MP Dilip Ghosh today said that chief minister Mamata Banerjee was agitating against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of the Citizen (NRC) to deny Hindu refugees the opportunity to get Indian citizenship. Ghosh also said that Miss Banerjee is misleading the people about the CAA for vote bank politics especially in view of the polls to 107 municipalities to be held soon.

Meanwhile, the state BJP has directed party cadres to go to each and every household of the state and tell people of the need for citizenship for refugees who have been forced to flee the neighbouring countries due to religious persecution. “Efforts are on to malign the prestige of the country at international fora. The refugees have been made voters to seek their votes, but they have not been accorded citizenship.

This is a farce,” Mr Ghosh said. Yesterday, top BJP leaders conducted the day-long workshop for party cadres on the new citizenship law. “We want that our refugee brothers get citizenship and live in this country with honour. But the opposition parties have other plans. They are opposing it for their own vested political interests,” he said. The BJP leader said the issue would be a poll plank of the party in the municipal polls in 107 municipalities and Kolkata Municipal Corporation due in April-May 2020.

“The TMC might use the issue in the municipal polls. But that won’t yield any results as the people are with us,” he claimed. BJP leaders also asked party workers to reach out to the people on the issue to allay their “fears and misinformation” allegedly spread by the TMC in Bengal. Earlier Miss Banerjee has participated in six protest marches and three rallies in various parts of the state, apart from launching a statewide campaign against the new legislation.

The state BJP has organised only one mega march in the city, led by the party’s national working president J P Nadda, and rallies by the state president to counter the anti- CAA protests led by the chief minister. Another senior leader of the BJP said that they will leave no stone unturned to reach out to the masses on the issue of the CAA.

“Just to appease her vote bank, Mamata Banerjee is opposing the CAA and trying to stop refugees from getting citizenship. But we will not let that happen, we will expose the misinformation campaign through our counter-campaign. There is already huge support in favour of the CAA,” he said.