Bengali-speaking migrant workers need to prove citizenship, being branded foreigners: Mamata

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that in some other places of the country, people from the state need to provide proof whether they are Indians and are being branded as "foreigners" for speaking in Bengali.

The TMC supremo said that the Union government can take action if someone is an illegal immigrant, and the state has nothing to say on that.

"But why would you send Indian citizens to Bangladesh?" she asked, maintaining that migrant Bengali-speaking workers from the state were being harassed over their citizenship and claimed that some of them were pushed into Bangladesh despite having proper Indian identification proof.

Maintaining that people from Bengal played a leading role in the country's independence struggle, Banerjee said, "But now you are saying people from the state are foreigners.

Showing the image on her mobile phone of a 10-Rupee currency note of 1912 which bore Bengali language, she said, "We are now having to provide proof whether we are Indians or not.

"One must remember we are citizens of this country and Bangla language is our pride," he said.

Banerjee said no one should fill up any form without knowing its details.

"Your name may get deleted from the voter list and thereafter you may get served an NRC notice," she said.

Speaking at a government distribution programme of welfare schemes, the chief minister alleged that the Election Commission is trying to introduce NRC "through the back door" in the garb of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Maintaining that a conspiracy is on to delete names of genuine voters from the electoral rolls, Banerjee asked everyone to get their names enlisted again.

Banerjee said that those who think that nothing more needs to be done if they have the EPIC card should know that the rules have been changed.

She said those who are bringing in such rules do not know the plight of the poorer sections of the society, asking whether the officials who have made the norms have all their identification papers in order.

Banerjee said that many people, including herself, were born at home and would not be able to provide their birth certificates.

Asking everyone not to be afraid of such exercise, Banerjee said, "This is a conspiracy of the double-engine government to delete names of people and send them to Bangladesh.

She claimed that people speaking in Bengali are being branded Bangladeshi or Rohingya.

She urged people not to allow deletion of their names from the voter list or take away the pride for their mother tongue.

"Is it a crime to speak in one's mother tongue?" she asked, wondering whether speaking in Bengali would mean the speaker is a Bangladeshi.

Banerjee said that those who came from Bangladesh after the 1971 India-Pakistan war following rules are also Indian citizens.

Banerjee, who has launched a protest programme over the Bengali language issue, asserted that mother tongue is everyone's pride.

Maintaining that migrant workers from Bengal are facing atrocities in other states for speaking in Bengali, she said that more than 2,000 people have been brought back to their homes.

Banerjee claimed that Bengali-speaking people were facing hardships in some BJP-ruled states and that some were being pushed into Bangladesh.

"This is a conspiracy of double-engine governments," she said, pointing to BJP-ruled states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

Stating that the country's national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" was written in Bengali language, she said that now the existence of the language itself was being questioned.