Kolkata, 3 December (H.S.):
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday strongly objected to the Waqf Development Board’s move to register nearly 50 percent of the state’s Waqf properties on the Central government’s portal. She asserted that her government would “not allow any harm or encroachment on any religious place or anyone’s property in Bengal.”
Addressing a public rally in Gazole, Malda — organised against the ongoing special voter revision drive — the Chief Minister said that the new Waqf Amendment Act had been introduced by the Centre, but the West Bengal assembly had already passed a resolution opposing it. She added that the matter was currently pending before the Supreme Court, yet her government would firmly resist any attempt to take control of private or community-owned land.
Targeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Banerjee alleged that the special voter revision process began under his instructions. She claimed that the exercise was an indirect attempt to bring in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), something she vowed never to allow in the state.
Banerjee asserted that she would not permit any move that could send citizens to detention centres or delete genuine voters from the electoral roll. She clarified that she was never against SIR (Special Intensive Revision), but had only demanded that such a process be carried out within a reasonable timeframe.
The Chief Minister further accused the Central government of withholding funds owed to West Bengal. According to her, the state is yet to receive a total pending amount of Rs 1.87 lakh crore. She added that GST is now the only tax collected in the country, but the shares due to states are not being released by the Centre.
In her speech, Banerjee said that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is eager to come to power in West Bengal, it must do so through democratic means. Any attempt to capture control forcefully, she said, would be nothing less than an “undeclared Emergency.”
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Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh
