West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee while lashing out at the BJP government for trying to brand the protesters against CAA as “anti-nationals,”on Monday urged political parties and civil society groups to join hands and isolate the saffron party across the country.

Mentioning that the BJP is trying to take away the citizenship of legal citizens of the country, Banerjee said she will not allow updation of National Population Register (NPR), which has already been stayed by her government.

“BJP is planning to take away citizenship of legal citizens. I would appeal to everybody to join hands against the BJP and isolate them everywhere,” Banerjee said before the commencement of her 5-km-long protest march in Purulia town.

Whoever is conducting peaceful protest is being termed as anti-national, the Trinamool head said.

“I will not stop my protest till the CAA is withdrawn. Just ensure that your names are there in voters list. The rest will be taken care of by me. No one will have to leave this country,” she said.

Earlier too, on several occasions the Bengal CM had been quite vocal against the CAA and NRC. Yesterday she reiterated that her government would in no way be involved in carrying out the process of putting in place “detention camps” in the state nor would it undertake the process of “National Population Register” (NPR) as dictated by the Central government.

CM said that as long as she is alive the Citizenship (Amendment) Act will not be implemented in the state and there will be no detention centre in it.

None can take away the rights of the people of the country, like citizenship, the Trinamul Congress chief said while inaugurating the Naihati festival at Naihati in North 24-Parganas. Referring to the state government’s decision to put on hold the National Population Register, Banerjee said: “We did not realise their (BJP’s) intent initially. But when we got to know that it is linked to singling out bonafide citizens of the country, we stopped the exercise in Bengal. We will not do anything which will pose a danger to people.”

Lending her support to the students’ protest across the country against the amended Citizenship Act, the state chief minister wondered why they cannot have the right to protest when they can vote to elect a government on turning 18. “Why can’t students protest against a draconian law? The Centre is taking action against protesting students and is rusticating them from universities,” she said.

The amended law seeks to provide citizenship to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities who have faced religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan and have arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.

Violent protests have been reported from across the nation as locals and students demonstrating against the Act clashed with the police.