KOLKATA/ JALPAIGURI: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday slammed the Centre for the possible implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, claiming that the BJP was raking the issue ahead of the Gujarat assembly election.
Hours later, Union Minister of State for Home Nisith Pramanik asserted that the CAA will be gradually implemented across the country.
The Centre had on Monday decided to grant Indian citizenship to minorities mostly from Pakistan, who have migrated to India, and are currently living in two districts of Gujarat, under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and not the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA).
"Stop all these politics. They (BJP) are doing it because there are elections in Gujarat. We will not let them implement it. To us, all are citizens (of India). We are against this," Banerjee told reporters at the Kolkata airport before leaving for Chennai.
She has travelled to the southern Indian city to attend a family gathering of West Bengal Governor La Ganesan.
"I would say that elections are not that important, politics are not that important, people's lives are more important," she added.
Union minister Pramanik, after landing at Bagdogra airport in the northern part of West Bengal, told reporters that the legislation will be implemented across the country.
"The CAA is for the deprived and oppressed Hindus and others. It will be implemented not only in Gujarat but also gradually all over India," he said.
Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP on Tuesday claimed that the process of CAA implementation has started in the country and the state will not be left out of it.
BJP MLA Ashim Sarkar, however, on Tuesday sang a different tune wondering what was the need for Citizenship Act in 2019 if citizenship was granted under the 1955 Act.
The Narendra Modi government wants to grant Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- who had come to India till December 31, 2014.
The CAA was passed by the Parliament in 2019 but the law is yet to be implemented as rules under it have not been framed.
The promise of implementing the controversial CAA had been a major poll plank of the BJP in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
The saffron party's leaders consider it a plausible factor that led to the rise of the BJP in West Bengal. The panchayat election is due in the state in 2023.