Amid buzz over nation wide implementation of NRC, the West Bengal Chief Minister on Monday announced that her government will provide land ownership to refugees and regularise colonies where they have been staying for long. "We have decided to regularize all the lands (refugee settlements), solely because it has been a long time now. Since (March) 1971, they have been left hanging without a home or land. I believe refugees have the right," says the statement released by Trinamool Congress quoting Mamata Banerjee.
Earlier, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the National Register of Citizens (NRC) process will be carried out across the country, and made it clear there would be no discrimination on the basis of religion. Even as Shah made a countrywide pitch for the NRC process, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee assured people she will never allow such a citizen register in the state.
Shah told the Rajya Sabha that all citizens of India irrespective of religion will figure in the NRC list. There is no provision in the NRC that people belonging to other religions will not be included in the register,he added. He said the Centre accepts that refugees - Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis - who left Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan due to religious atrocities should get Indian citizenship.
"The process of National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be carried out across the country. No one irrespective of their religion should be worried. It is just a process to get everyone under the NRC," he said replying to a supplementary during Question Hour.
"People from all religions who are Indian citizens will be included. There is no question of any discrimination on the basis of religion. NRC is a different process and the Citizenship Amendment Bill is different," Shah said.
In Assam, the NRC process was carried out as per Supreme Court order, he said and added that when the updating process will be implemented in the entire country Assam will also be included. Banerjee said the NRC in Assam was part of Assam Accord signed during the tenure of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and that the exercise can never be
implemented across the country. "There are few people who are trying to create disturbances in West Bengal in the name of implementation of the NRC. I want to make it very clear, we will never allow NRC in Bengal".
"No one can take away your citizenship and turn you into a refugee. There can be no division on the basis of religion," Banerjee said while addressing a public meeting in Sagardighi in Murshidabad district. Before talking about implementing the NRC in West Bengal, the BJP should answer why 14 lakhs Hindus and Bengalis were omitted from the final NRC list in Assam, she said.
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