Fight BJP’s ‘Dushashans’ by boycotting NPR: Mamata Banerjee

BONGAON/RANAGHAT: Drawing on the Mahabharata, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday likened BJP to a party of “Dushashans” against whom the people of her state should fight back using every means possible, including refusal to provide family data to census officers updating the NPR.


“Don’t tell them (census personnel) everything. Don’t provide documents like land or house papers and ration

cards

even if they ask for them. Don’t entertain them even if they come with West Bengal government identity cards. Some religious fanatics may reach your home with false identity cards,” Mamata told a large gathering of people from the border districts at Bongaon Stadium in North 24-Parganas.

She called NPR “the first step towards NRC” and part of a larger BJP ploy to bulldoze its way through any pocket of resistance. “They are now talking bullets to silence voices of dissent,” she said.

Mamata’s remark about “Dushashans” appeared to be a retort to Bengal BJP chief and MP Dilip Ghosh’s “Shikhandi” barb at Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha while speaking on protests against the tweaked citizenship law in Kolkata and other parts of the country. “Unfortunately, these Shikhandis are in power there (Bengal). The police did nothing (against anti-CAA protesters). I opposed it. Now I am being defamed. I am a patriot,” PTI quoted Ghosh as saying.

While Dushashan disrobing Draupadi is seen as the most vile act in the Mahabharata, comparisons with Shikhandi are meant to invoke cowardice because the transgender warrior was used as a human shield to kill Bhishma at Kurukshetra.

Don’t tell them everything. Don’t give documents like land or house papers and ration cards even if they ask. Don’t entertain them even if they come with Bengal govt ID cards.

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