The Trinamul Congress will bring a resolution in the state Assembly on 27 January against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), state parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee said today. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee had yesterday given broad hints about the state government’s plan to adopt the resolution.

Announcing the decision the minister told the media, “We submitted the resolution to the Speaker on yesterday itself… I have called up the Leader of the Opposition, Abdul Mannan (Congress) and sought his support. In fact, we seek support of all those who opposed us on this issue earlier. We could not decide on moving this resolution earlier as there was another issue. Our goal is to strengthen democracy.”

The Trinamul’s announcement comes amidst mounting criticism by the Left and the Congress for not passing a resolution opposing CAA. Reacting to the Opposition’s charge that the Trinamul had refused to adopt such a resolution because of its “tacit” understanding with the BJP, Chatterjee said they “don’t need lessons from others on how to continue our fight against CAANPR- NRC.”

He said the Trinamul would appeal to all the opposition parties to extend support to the resolution so that it is adopted unanimously. Asked whether the government would also concede the Left’s demand for challenging the CAA in the Supreme Court Chatterjee said, “The government and the party will rather go to the people’s court first and then take a call, if needed, on whether to move the apex court or not”.

Kerala and Punjab Assemblies have already passed resolutions against the new citizenship law. The West Bengal state Assembly had earlier passed an all-party resolution, barring the BJP, against NRC in September last year. Responding to the Union home minister Amit Shah’s challenge to the Trinamul supremo, among others, to publicly debate with him the CAA, Chatterjee said he would discuss it in the party.

The Congress and the CPI-M asked Shah to take steps to bring the Saradha, Narada and other ponzi scam cases to a logical end first and ensure the repayment of those who lost their money in the chit fund fraud cases, instead of adopting “diversionary tactic” like debate on CAA.