HM Amit Shah to speak on NRC at Kolkata on Oct 1

Kolkata, Sep 24: Union Home Minister Amit Shah to speak on National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Bill at Kolkata's Netaji Indoor Stadium on October 1. The Kolkata police on Monday gave permission to Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) proposed programme on NRC.

The BJP is pitching the NRC as a strong step against infiltrators and illegal immigrants.

BJP national president Amit Shah and working president J P Nadda are scheduled to attend the programme. This is BJP's first event at Netaji Indoor in the past eight years.

On Monday, accusing the BJP of creating panic over NRC, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed spectre of NRC implementation has led to six deaths in the state.

Renewing her pledge to keep Bengal out of the NRC exercise and offering people a tip to calm their fears over documents the WB CM said, people should file FIRs in police stations stating that they have lost vital documents deemed necessary for inclusion in the NRC.

"If you have the FIRs, nothing can happen. Everybody knows Bengal experiences a lot of floods. Floods, natural disasters... documents get lost, nobody can do anything about it. Go to the nearest police station, file an FIR, relax. If you must, deal with this intelligently," she added.

TMC has been on the offensive by milking the issue of updating the NRC as an "anti-Bengali" move on the part of the saffron party.

Earlier, the WB BJP president Dilip Ghosh slammed Mamata and her party leaders opposing plans for the NRC in Bengal. He claimed that the Mamata-led TMC government in the state is protecting more than one crore Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims. Addressing a press meet, he iterated that the BJP will implement NRC in Bengal and throw out infiltrators.

Countering Ghosh's statement the TMC supremo accused the BJP of indulging in "divisive politics", Mamata also challenged the party to "touch even one citizen on the pretext of implementing NRC".

More than 19 lakh people in Assam have been excluded from the recently published final NRC, proof of Indian citizenship.