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In reaction to Union Minister Shantanu Thakur's big claim that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will be implemented across the country in a week, Trinamool Congress (TMC) Minister Shashi Panja claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is resorting to its old tactic.
"BJP is resorting to its old tactics vis-a-vis CAA. Shantanu Thakur, a Minister of the Government of India elected from West Bengal has again said that CAA will be implemented in Bengal. He lacks confidence himself when he says this," Panja said. The West Bengal Cabinet Minister said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had made it clear that BJP rakes up the CAA issue for electoral benefits. "Our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has very categorically said that this (CAA) is an election issue for the BJP," she said. Panja pointed out that the group of people in West Bengal whom Thakur said would be the beneficiaries of CAA are already citizens of India. "The so-called citizenship that he is talking about--for the people of Bengal, they are already citizens and they cannot be given double citizenship again," the TMC leader said. The TMC Minister assured the citizens that they can be confident about being citizens since they are already beneficiaries of various schemes of the state government. "So people in Bengal may be rest assured by our Chief Minister...They are also beneficiaries of the various schemes of Bengal, they are taking part in the voting process. So they can be assured that they are citizens of Bengal," he said. Hitting out at the BJP, Panja said, "BJP is just raking this as an election issue as they have no intent for any kind of benefit or security. People's issues are not in their minds. It is their selfish attitude that they have in their mind." Earlier on Sunday, Union Minister of State Shantanu Thakur said that the CAA will be implemented across the country in a week. "Today I am giving a guarantee that CAA will be implemented in Bengal and other states of India in the next seven days," Thakur said while addressing a public gathering in Kakdwip in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas. The CAA, introduced by the Narendra Modi government, aim to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants - including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians - who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014. Following the passage of the CAA by Parliament in December 2019 and its subsequent Presidential assent, significant protests erupted in various parts of the country. (ANI)
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