To counter the “false propaganda” by the TMC chief Mamata Banerjee over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), the state BJP has decided to train 25,000 booth level party activists and explain the “facts” about the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government’s measures on citizenship. BJP’s state president and MP Dilip Ghosh said that the BJP leadership has decided to launch an intensive campaign in West Bengal to counter the TMC’s “false propaganda” regarding Citizenship (Amendment) Act and reach out to refugees.
Miss Banerjee has participated in six protest marches and three rallies in various parts of the state, apart from launching a state-wide campaign against the new legislation. The state BJP has organised only one mega march in the city, led by the party’s national working president J P Nadda, and rallies by the state president to counter the anti-CAA protests led by the chief minister.
Another senior leader of the BJP said that they will leave no stone unturned to reach out to the masses on the issue of the CAA. “Just to appease her vote bank, Mamata Banerjee is opposing the CAA and trying to stop refugees from getting citizenship. But we will not let that happen, we will expose the misinformation campaign through our countercampaign. There is already a huge support in favour of the CAA,” he said.
The BJP has made a sixminute video using footage of the great Calcutta killings in 1946 and dialogue from Bengali films, with an objective to showcase the plight of refugees in post- partition years and make people understand the need for the amended Citizenship Act. As a part of its audio visual campaign, it is using footage of the exodus of refugees from East Pakistan in 1947, and portions of footage of movies on refugees’ crisis and will upload it on social media platforms.
“We would tell people of Bengal that many people were religiously persecuted from Bangladesh. And we also want to give the Indian Muslims assurance that they would not be harmed. Miss Banerjee is falsely campaigning against BJP regarding certain issues on CAA,” he said. The party will also reach to around 25,000 booths as its immediate target. “We would intensify our campaigning initially to 18 Lok Sabha constituencies and would cover 42 LS segments eventually,” said another leader.