With five more phases of polling remaining in the West Bengal Assembly elections, anti-NRC activists have launched a “Secure Your Citizenship Movement” making CAA and NRC as a main theme in the polls.

The activists will bring to centre stage the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens to campaign in favour of non-BJP, non-Trinamool Congress candidates, particularly in refugee-concentrated districts including the North 24 Parganas.

Supporting CPI candidates

On Wednesday, a group of activists visited Gaighatta, an SC reserved constituency. “We are supporting the CPI candidate Kapil Krishna Thakur. He is an award winning dailt writer and an active campaigner against CAA-NRC,” said economist and activist Prasenjit Bose.

They will visit Habra constituency on Thursday to campaign for CPI(M) candidate Rijinandan Biswas. They will support All India Forward Bloc and non-Left Front candidates of the BSP and the CPI(ML-Liberation) over the next two weeks.

‘Taking everyone for a ride’

“We will tell them that the BJP is dangling the carrot of citizenship. It is a fraud on people. In their Assam manifesto, they say they want corrected NRC. It is nothing but re-verification. At least six million people will have to submit their documents yet again if the BJP comes back to power in Assam where the BJP manifesto is silent on CAA. In West Bengal, they are silent on NRC and vocal on CAA. They are taking everyone for a ride,” Bose charged.

When asked why TMC is also being opposed, he said the manifesto of TMC is also silent on NRC and CAA. “Mamata Banerjee had supported the 2003 amendments to Citizenship Act. So we have decided to campaign for only those candidates who have participated in the protests against CAA-NRC,” he said.

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