Amid reports of West Bengal residents being detained by police in Maharashtra on suspicion of being illegal Bangladesh migrants and pushed into the neighbouring country, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the BJP of targeting Bengali-speaking citizens in the states ruled by them.
Speaking during the Question Hour in the Assembly, the chief minister, pointing to the Opposition benches occupied by BJP MLAs, said: “You must be ashamed that you are labelling bona fide Indian citizens as Bangladeshis just because of the language they speak. One should feel proud to speak in Bengali, as well as Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi. If you ask me, I can speak in all these languages.”
“On one hand, you are branding Indians as Bangladeshis for their spoken word, and on the other, you are depriving these people, who hold voter ID, PAN, and Aadhaar cards, of the right to earn their livelihood in your states,” she added.
Her remarks triggered an uproar from BJP legislators, who stood up in protest and shouted slogans.
However, the chief minister continued speaking and accused the BJP-led Centre of withholding MGNREGA funds for over two years. “The Central government has illegally stopped Bengal’s MGNREGA funds. Even states with double-engine (BJP) governments have faced corruption charges, but their funds haven’t been stopped. Only Bengal’s legitimate dues have been withheld. This is a corrupt government,” Mamata said.
She said that despite the BJP’s step-motherly treatment, the state has laid 69,000 km of roads under Pathashree and initiated Awas Yojana with Rs 11,000 crore. “Bengal has topped road and rural housing project rankings five times in a row,” she added.
She claimed that despite the financial crunch, people in the state were getting 50 days of employment on average, and that her government had created 1.5 crore mandays under various schemes.
“While on one hand you deprive the poor people of Bengal, on the other, the procession of deaths in various mishaps continues in your states,” she said.
She made the remarks while Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Pradip Majumder was responding to questions.
As the chief minister spoke, BJP MLAs, including Shikha Chatterjee and Shankar Ghosh, stood up in protest. Banerjee hit back, saying the protesting MLAs “lacked the power” to win even a councillor’s seat. This prompted more sloganeering from the Opposition benches. Ruckus further escalated when Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya addressed the House.
Meanwhile, BJP MLAs tried to bring a motion related to the alleged state school jobs scam, referring to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to cancel the entire panel of the SLST-2016. The Speaker rejected the motion, calling it sub-judice, leading to further sloganeering from BJP MLAs. Kumargram MLA Manoj Oraon continued his protest despite repeated warnings from Speaker Biman Banerjee. The Speaker eventually ordered marshals to remove Oraon from the House and later announced his suspension for one day of the monsoon session.
Following Oraon’s suspension, all the BJP MLAs walked out of the Assembly in protest.
With PTI