CAA 'jumla' ahead of elections, claims TMC's Abhishek Banerjee

Senior Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee on Monday dubbed the implementation of the CAA rules as a 'jumla' (rhetoric) ahead of the Lok Sabha elections to fool the people.

The TMC national general secretary claimed that a man in the Tollygunge area of Kolkata died by suicide over confusion of citizenship as he did not have the relevant papers.

Rules of the CAA were notified last week, and the government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians -- from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.

''Before the elections, they have come up with CAA yet again. The law was passed in 2019 and it took them five years to frame the rules. This is yet another jumla before the elections to fool the masses,'' Banerjee said while addressing an election rally at Katwa in Purba Bardhaman district.

Banerjee claimed that of the 40 pages of the CAA notification, 38 consisted of forms.

''People are being asked to fill up forms without further details. More than 12 lakh Hindu Bengalis in Assam fell prey to NRC. BJP Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma did nothing for them. Yesterday, a youth in Tollygunge died by suicide because he thought he did not have the relevant papers,'' he said. The Diamond Harbour MP was referring to a 37-year-old man who was found hanging in a house near Kolkata, with his father claiming that panic over the citizenship issue prompted the death by suicide.

A TMC delegation visited the family of the deceased, Debasish Sengupta, on Thursday evening.

The BJP accused the TMC of spreading falsehood in connection with the man's death.

''Trinamool Congress leaders have mastered the art of deceit, feeding the public with lies to sow confusion. Apparently, according to them, someone born in 1992 is already 37 years old! Their relentless attack on CAA, a legitimate law, is nothing short of disgraceful. Time to stop the misinformation about CAA,'' the West Bengal BJP posted on X.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)