WB: Kanhaiya Kumar to flag off rally against NRC on Nov 15

Kolkata, Nov 05: A combination of apolitical mass organisations formed a Joint Forum against the National Register of Citizens (NRC), has announced a rally across West Bengal to protest the BJP-led central government's plan to carry out the NRC exercise throughout the country.

The protest rally- "Yatra against NRC" will start from Darjeeling and it will end at Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas on December 8. The rally will cover a majority of the districts in the state to show protest against the NRC exercise in the State.

Earlier, after the BJP leaders repeatedly said that the NRC would be implemented in Bengal, panic spread in districts bordering Bangladesh, Some people committed suicide and some died of panic attacks.

JNU students' union chief Kanhaiya Kumar will flag off the protest rally on November 15.

Prasenjit Bose, the convenor of the forum, said on Monday, "We will start the yatra from Darjeeling on November 15 and it will conclude at Kakdwip on December 8. We also have plans to hold a mega mass rally against the NRC in Calcutta on December 9."

Nearly, fifty members of the forum are likely to pass through districts like North and South Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, East and West Burdwans, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas on a bus.

The convenor of the forum also added, "Our demands include citizenship for 19 lakh NRC-excluded persons in Assam, closure of all detention camps in that state, scrapping of the National Population Register, NRC and the anti-refugee Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003, and withdrawal of the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016."

Bose also announced a plan to move the Supreme Court if the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was passed in Parliament.

Bose alleged that politicians are misguiding people by claiming that the National Population Register (NPR) was the same as the census were. He claimed that the NPR was the first step towards the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC).

The forum demanded that the political parties who are opposing the NRC in Bengal should clear their views on the NPR and demand scrapping of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003.