NEW DELHI: The Congress accused Mamata Banerjee of having double standards on the draft NRC issue and said the West Bengal chief minister was only eyeing electoral gains from the local communities.
"Mamata is making a hue and cry over the draft NRC but when the Assam government had sought legacy certificates for around 1.30 lakh applicants who belong to West Bengal, the state government gave replies in only 25 per cent cases," Assam Congress president Ripun Bora told The New Indian Express.
"Mamata is blowing the NRC issue out of proportion. She welcomes all the 40 lakh people excluded from the draft but has sealed the borders between two states," West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.
Both Bora and Chowdhury alleged that while the BJP was trying to polarize the voters over the NRC draft, the TMC was playing up the regional sentiments of Bengalis. But both the leaders also acknowledged that identification of the illegal migrants was an emotive issue in Assam and the Congress was committed to free the state of such residents.
Chowdhury was of the opinion that if the TMC really wanted to help the Bengalis it should pressure the centre and the Assam governments to address the gaps in the implementation of the NRC. "We want to fight the issue legally and politically," he said.
"We welcome the NRC but want its defects to be removed. The Congress never allows those who came to Assam after 1971. We don't want their names to be in the NRC," said Bora.
Chowdhury, in turn, slammed the TMC leaders trying to go to Silchar in Assam which has a significant percentage of Bengali population saying that Mamata's party was only trying compounding the problem."They are raising slogans that Bengalis are in danger. By doing this they are adding fuel to the fire," said Chowdhury. He also pointed out that there was no plan to deal with the persons who will be kept out of the NRC as there was no extradition treaty with Bangladesh.