West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee led a mega protest rally in Kolkata against the implementation of the National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) list in Assam. The rally was held against the NRC list in which names of more than 19 lakh people did not feature. Mamata Banerjee has been a critic of NRC and has been questioning the motive of the Narendra Modi government behind it since the time the plan was announced by the central government.

The Chief Minister has repeatedly stated that the West Bengal government will not allow the Centre to prepare the NRC in Bengal. Warning the BJP not to 'play with fire', Banerjee said that she will never allow NRC in her State and does not accept NRC in Assam.

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'BJP cannot silence Bengal', Banerjee lashes out 

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that BJP has managed to silence the people of Assam by using police administration but they cannot silence Bengal. Hitting out at BJP, she stated that out of the 19 lakh people whose names have not featured in the list, 11 lakh are Hindus and 1 lakh are Gorkhas. 

'You (BJP) cannot make us bow down. You are trying to destroy the culture of Bengal. This is not just Bengal’s tradition that you are destroying, you are destroying the country’s tradition. I will not let you divide Bengal and the country', lashed out an angry Mamata Banerjee after walking a 4-kilometer stretch from Sinthee more to Shyambazar in North Kolkata. The mega rally had many prominent TMC faces like senior MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, MP Saugata Roy, WB Minister Dr. Sashi Panja and Kolkata's Mayor Firhad Hakim. 

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'Can't implement NRC in Bengal till I am alive'

The West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed a resolution against the introduction of NRC last week. The resolution, jointly moved by the ruling Trinamool Congress, Left Front, and Congress, was passed to prevent its implementation in the state of West Bengal. BJP MLAs walked out after opposing the resolution after the debate on it. Terming it to be a 'colossal human tragedy' and 'a conspiracy hatched by BJP with the sole aim of political vendetta', TMC has blazed out all its gun on Centre. 

'Till the time I’m alive, you can’t implement NRC in Bengal. And after I die, my party will not allow you to implement it in the state' said the supremo from the stage as hundreds of her supporters shouted anti-NRC slogans. In 2005, Mamata Banerjee as the sole MP from TMC stormed out of Parliament on the issue of illegal immigration. She had then accused the then Left Front government in West Bengal to allow trespassers or Bangladeshi immigrants to enter into Bengal illegally, claiming that those illegal immigrants were used as a vote bank for the Left.

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