VHP to launch awarenesss program on CAB and NRC in WB

The VHP will launch an awareness programme in West Bengal from next week on the need for National Register of Citizens (NRC) to weed out Bangladeshi muslim infiltrators from the state and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to grant citizenship to refugees, its senior leader said.

The VHP will hold its membership drive in the state between November 17 to December 1 and will speak of the two issues during their door to door campaign, VHP leader and spokesperson Sourish Mukherjee said on Friday.

The VHP has set a target of increasing its number of members from 55,000 to two lakh.

"We have been campaigning on NRC in Bengal for the past few months. But within the next few days we will launch it in a massive way. This time we will campaign for both NRC and CAB," he said.

The VHP Bengal unit has come out with a leaflet on CAB and NRC.

Speaking on the implementation of the NRC in West Bengal, he said the demography in the state's border districts has completely changed in the last 10 years due to infiltration by Bangladeshi muslims.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, he said, should be put into effect before the implementation of NRC to give citizenship status to Hindu refugees from Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries.

The CAB is expected to be introduced in Parliament in its coming winter session.

The bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis and Buddhists from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after seven years of residence in India even if they do not possess any document.

The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8 but was not tabled in Rajya Sabha then and had lapsed.

The proposed NRC implementation in Bengal has turned into a flash point in West Bengal with the Mamata Banerjee government vehemently opposing it. It had created a panic claiming 11 lives in the state.

The panic was trigerred by the omission of about 19.6 lakh names from the final NRC list in Assam. Majority of those omitted from the list were allegedly those of Hindus and Bengali Hindus.