Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said that BJP was showing signs of nervousness after the large-scale agitation against the contentious CAA-NPR being organised across the country and was resorting to its pet agenda of spreading hatred and fear psychosis among the people to divide them.

“The BJP is scared over the overwhelming response of the common people across the country as peaceful agitation against the CAA-NPR was getting bigger and bigger and assumed alarming proportions. Out of fear, the leaders of the BJP, including the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and a union minister are trying to spread hatred and create polarisation on religious lines by asking people to open fire,” Ms Banerjee said at Nabanna today.

Reacting to queries on Sunday night’s alleged firing incident at Jamia Milia Islamia university in Delhi, the chief minister said, “Such recurring incidents are the fallout of the continuous provocation by a section of BJP leaders including a chief minister of a state and a union minister. They had got rattled by the magnitude of the spontaneous protests being organised across the country against the contentious CAA-NPR and NRC.”

The chief minister continued, “They have no other agenda except spreading hatred and fear. They do not have a plan to bring the crumbling economy back on track. The union budget is big zero. They don’t have a roadmap to take the country on the path of progress. They did nothing to benefit poor people and farmers. I don’t know why they are playing politics of fear. They should have played the development card. They should have played a political card instead”.

Going hammer and tongs against the saffron brigade, Ms Banerjee said “In Delhi where the Assembly polls are going to be held there are several issues that a party can make poll planks. But there they are playing cards of hatred and fear to polarise voters there. They don’t have an agenda beyond this. In every state, they will like to play the cards of hatred before polls. The BJP is dubbing people protesting against CAA-NPR-NRC as anti-national and even calling them terrorists. Are they are the sole vanguards of propagating nationalism and patriotism in the country and others are antinational? Should we have to learn patriotism from them?”

Meanwhile, the chief minister said that at the special cabinet meeting held at Nabanna today approved the proposal on allowing teachers the option of availing postings according to their choices in their native districts. This, she said was done to facilitate teachers to ease their “workload a bit” because for so long they were having to join their duties braving so much trouble and odds, this move would lessen their woes.