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Bengal

As long as I'm there, no CAB, NRC in Bengal, says Mamata

Kharagpur: On a day Union Home minister Amit Shah placed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday gave a clarion call to oppose the "divisive" Bill "at any cost" and said not a single citizen of the country will be allowed to turn a refugee.

Giving assurances that NRC and CAB will be never allowed in Bengal as long as she is in power, Banerjee said NRC and CAB are both two sides of a coin.

Addressing a mammoth rally here on Monday afternoon, she said: "The country should not be divided in the name of NRC or CAB. We are staying here for 70 years in a free country and we are voters. There is no need to worry about NRC and CAB. We will never ever allow it in Bengal. They can't just throw out a legal citizen of this country or turn him/her a refugee. Who has given them the right to divide the country and the communities?"

Assuring the gathering, she said: "Everyone has some document or the other. While some have driving licenses, others may have copies of deed of right. It is not so easy to throw people out of the country. In Assam, the names of 19 lakh people have been deleted from the NRC."

Coming down heavily on the Centre for its failure to bring down the price of onions, she said: "What they are doing in Delhi? How many meetings have they held to discuss the matter? We are trying our best to bring down the price. We are selling onions at Rs 59 a kilogram from Sufal Bangla stores and ration shops."

She also thanked the people for voting for Pradip Sarkar, her nominee in the by-election. Sarkar defeated BJP candidate Prem Chand Jha by over 20,000 votes. Trinamool has won the seat for the first time since the inception of the party 22 years ago.

The Chief Minister also spoke about giving five acres of land to Vidyasagar University. In Kharagpur Hospital, an ICCU will be set up with 10 beds and work will be completed by March. Three community centres will come up at Kharagpur, Karimpur and Kaliagunj each worth Rs 5 crore. The funds will be provided by the Rajya Sabha MPs.

Banerjee instructed the District Magistrate to bring all the farmers under the crop insurance scheme whose premium is being paid by the state government. She urged the farmers to sell paddy at the collection centres and not to the middlemen who always try to mislead them. The district administration will set up special camps to complete mutation procedure of the farmers.

She said in poverty alleviation, Bengal tops the list in the country. It has cut down unemployment by 40 per cent and also ranks first in ease of doing business. She further added that many foreign companies will join the Bengal Global Business Conclave at Digha on December 11 and 12 where she proposes to stress on sea tourism.

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