KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday slammed the BJP for asking why people from the state require to go all the way to Kashmir for work, and said people have the freedom to go anywhere they like in the country.
In the backdrop of killing of five labourers from West Bengal in a terror attack in Kashmir, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh had on Wednesday wondered why labourers have to leave their state and said the TMC government should take steps to generate employment to stop migration.
Banerjee said the comments of some BJP leaders in the wake of the killing are shameful and infringe on the Constitutional right of every Indian to go and work wherever he or she likes.
The CM said, people from different linguistic and religious communities live in harmony and peace in West Bengal, observing their own rituals and following their own food habits.
"This goes against the policies of the BJP and its cohort to cause rift and division among the people, to spread hatred, to set Bengal in flames," Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, said while inaugurating a Jagaddhatri Puja in the city.
The chief minister called upon the people to be on guard against any effort to create discord among them.
Wondering how people from one state can be termed 'outsider' in another, she said, "Don't Kashmiri brothers live in Bengal? It is not our culture to throw them out."
Banerjee iterated her opposition to NRC and said, "How can you allow A to live and keep out B? Can you keep one brother in the list and exclude the other? This is not done."
She claimed that not only Muslims but also people from other communities, and even those living for more than 50 years have been excluded in the NRC exercise in Assam.
Turning to economic issues, Banerjee said "while they (BJP) are creating division among people, they are taking away their livelihood. How many PSUs have been closed and are going to be closed down? Who is responsible for that,? she asked.