In an attack on the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said the saffron party was trying to impose NRC and NPR like opium on the people’s minds to mislead them on the real economic situation of the country.

Speaking at an anti-CAA, anti-NPR rally at Ranaghat in Nadia, Miss Banerjee said, “Politics of divide and rule would do no good to the country, which is currently facing an economic slowdown.” “They (BJP government) are trying to sell off all PSUs, be it BSNL, LIC, Ordnance factories and the Railways. Unable to revive the country’s economy, they have now chosen the easy way out,” she said.

She also said that unemployment had increased by 32 per cent in the country while in West Bengal alone; the unemployment had gone down by 40 per cent. “We can stem unemployment as we have chosen various ground-level projects where lakhs of jobs have been created in the last eight years. Raising doubts over the National Population Register (NPR), Miss Banerjee urged people not to give their documents to anyone until she tells them directly to do so.

“Don’t show them any documents, if they ask you to submit your Aadhar card or details about your family, don’t give it to them, until and unless I tell you directly,” said Miss Banerjee. The NPR, NRC, and CAA are like black magic, she added.

Attacking the BJP over NRC, the CM said, “Will you (BJP) drive me out of the country because I don’t have my mother’s birth certificate? Like me, more than 70 per cent of people will not be able to show their parents’ birth certificates. Then will you drive them out of the country?”

Her remarks come at a time when the central government has once again clarified that no decision has been taken on a countrywide NRC. While highlighting the scenario of the Assam NRC, Miss Banerjee said that around 31 people had died due to fear over the matter in West Bengal. In Assam, more than 100 people have perished because of the NRC.

Addressing the rally at a place where Matua community voters in the previous election had chosen BJP, Miss Banerjee evoked both ‘Mahabharata’ and history to hit out at her bitter rival- the BJP and urged the people of the country to unite to save the country. She called BJP a “party of Dussasanas”, the brother of Kaurava prince Duryodhana in the epic ‘Mahabharata’ and “offspring of Muhammad- bin-Tughlaq”, the Sultan of Delhi from 1325-1351 known in history for his eccentric ways.

Lambasting the saffron party for trying to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act forcibly, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register, the TMC supremo, who has been among most the strident critics of the BJP, said she would stop it “anyhow”.

“The NPR, NRC and CAA are like black magic,” she said and urged the people of the country to unite to save the nation. Hitting out at the BJP leaders for their recent “goli vs boli” remark during campaigns for the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections, Miss Banerjee said that the saffron party was firing bullets because it knew it was heading for a drubbing in the Delhi assembly elections.