BJP Rath Yatras to garner support for Assam NRC, Citizenship Bill

Kolkata, Oct. 11 (PTI): The BJP Rath Yatras in West Bengal to be held in December would reach out to the general people in the state to garner support for the Assam NRC and the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, party state unit President Dilip Ghosh said Thursday.
The matter was discussed by the party’s central leadership and its West Bengal unit Thursday in a meeting here.
The office bearers meeting was attended by the party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvergiya and senior leader in-charge of the state Arvind Menon, party sources said.

Ghosh said the Rath Yatras would be held in December but the campaign for it will begin just after Durga Puja this month.
During the meeting, he urged party workers to reach out to the people on the two issues so that TMC’S “falsehoods” on the two issues can be countered, the sources said.

The NRC includes the names of Indian citizens who have been residing in Assam before March 25, 1971 and is touted as the proof of Assamese identity.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, seeks to grant citizenship to people without valid documents from six minority communities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in the country.

The Assam NRC has been criticised by the Trinamool Congress, who accused the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of unleashing ‘’super emergency’’.
The three Rath Yatras will be taken out by BJP with an eye on the next Lok Sabha polls. It will cover 42 Lok Sabha constituencies and will highlight state-level issues as well as constituency specific issues, the sources said.

The first Rath yatra is slated to start from the temple town of Tarapith in Birbhum district on December 3 and BJP president Amit Shah is likely to take part in it, Ghosh had told PTI earlier.

The second Rath Yatra is slated to be held on December 5 from Namkhana to Gangasagar in South 24 Parganas district and the third and last one would be held from December 7 in Cooch Behar, he said.

Meanwhile, in a boost for BJP in Purulia district, where the party has made steady inroads, former All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) MP Narahari Mahato joined the party.