West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee raised the issue of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam in a meeting with Union Home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi on Thursday. “No Indian should be put through difficulties,” said the West Bengal chief minister after her meeting with Amit Shah, pointing out that 1.9 million people were excluded from the final NRC.
The meeting between the two lasted for about 30 minutes.
The Bengal chief minister described her meeting with the Union Home Minister as a part of the “constitutional duty”. “ As a chief minister of a state with boundaries with foreign countries -Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal- it is part of my duty,” she said.
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This was the first meeting between the West Bengal CM and the Union Home Minister after the second Modi government came to power.
“I raised the issue of NRC with the home minister. Lives of people are now uncertain. Several Hindi, Bengali and Gurkhali speaking people have been left out of the NRC,” Mamata Banerjee said after the meeting and added “the issue of conducting NRC, did not come up during the meeting.”
“My stand and that of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar is same, we don’t need an NRC in our states,” the Trinamool Supremo said.
The BJP and , in particular, Home Minister Amit Shah have, however, said that the NRC process will be done across the country to weed out “illegal migrants”.