Multiple public rallies held over CAA in Kolkata

On Thursday, Kolkata saw multiple protests and rallies over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). From the Trinamool Congress which saw its MP Abhishek Banerjee and CM Mamata Banerjee hit it out at the Bharatiya Janta Party to a civil society rally against the act which had prominent artists like Aparna Sen and Kaushik Sen to the Left Front and Congress hitting the streets of Kolkata respectively.

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"Mamata Banerjee has said no to NRC in Bengal. Today, many Chief Ministers and political leaders are supporting it all over the country, be it Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Orissa, or Madhya Pradesh. They have spoken against NRC and its implementation. We have also seen many NDA allies speaking against the NRC. Mamata Banerjee has been saying this since long, it's the victory of Bengal. What you can do in UP, you can't do in Bengal, it's the land of Bose and Swami Vivekananda. Bengal is the land of all religions. All cultures reside in India. We won't let them divide our country", said MP Abhishek Banerjee addressing a huge gathering in Dharmatala.

The city also saw a mass rally where seventeen Left organizations collaborated against the recently passed act in Parliament. The mass rally which walked from Ram Lila Maidan to Park Circus seven point crossing saw prominent leaders of the CPI(M) like Suryakant Mishra and former MP Md. Salim. 

"On paper, CAA sounds like a great humanitarian gesture from the government, but what it’s doing is sowing seeds for a permanent enmity between the Muslim population in India and the rest, more so with the Hindus. A Muslim kid will wake up and feel they are no longer equal to their Hindu counterpart, this country sees them and their clique differently, which will create instability and an unsustainable future for everyone. The CAA alone can be seen as technically right, as the act restricts itself to the three Muslim countries that neighbor India," said Rohan Mitra of Congress, who took out a rally against CAA and NRC in the city. 

"However, when you analyze the policies and the ideology of the incumbent central government, and the declaration from the Home Minister that they will be bringing in NRC shortly and send back or detain the ones who don’t have the required documents to prove themselves Indians, you know who the target is, as only the Muslims will be detained or sent back, even if they have been loyal to the Indian Tricolor", he added.

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Amidst a lot of opposition, BJP in Kolkata took out a public rally in favor of the newly passed act in the southern part of the city on the same day. Kolkata, therefore, saw multiple rallies and public meetings on Thursday over CAA.

WATCH: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee Leads Protest March Against CAA In Kolkata