Himata recipient of Saradha scam, says Mamta Banerjee

Guwahati: West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee who on Friday addressed a public rally in Wes-tern Assam’s Dhubri said that National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Bill are “two lollipops” doled out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “fool” the people of Assam.

Though the Trinamul Congress (TMC) has very little at stake in Assam, Ms Banerjee flew to Dhubri in a helicopter to address a public meeting in which she raked up Sharadha chit fund scam and accused the Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma of being the rec-ipient of scam money.

Doling out some documents to her party candidate from Dhubri Lok Sabha seat, Ms Banerjee claimed that she was handing over documents to people of Assam that contains the evidence as to how the owner of the chit fund company had confessed to having paid Rs 3 crore to Mr Sarma. “You have Himanta babu here. Who is he? He is your minister. He is also in this chit fund scam. '3 crore was paid to him, the owner has said in this document,” she said adding, “Has any action been taken against him (Himanta Biswa Sarma)? Why has Prime Mi-nister Modi not been able to arrest him?” the Trinamul Congress chief said.

Ms Banerjee also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government, claiming that her Trinamul government in neighbouring West Bengal has been able to benefit the people against the ‘false promises’ to the  people of Assam by its  government.

Referring to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, she said, “NRC is a lollipop, CAB is a lollipop.”

She pointed that her government was the only one that spoke out for the 40 lakh applicants whose names were excluded from the final draft of NRC while questioning the reason for putting a question mark on the citizenship of Indians from other states residing in Assam.

Ms Banerjee, who spoke at length on various issues, termed the CAB a ‘conspiracy’, alleging that the government was doing mere lip service. Ms Banerjee also took a dig at the state government for alleged deplorable condition of detention camps. She said that even children are languishing in these camps.

“Trinamul Congress has received many threats for raking up these issues. But we cannot be bought by money, fear or threats. We are a party of ‘ma, mati, manush’ (mother, motherland, people) and we are not afraid of anything,” Ms Banerjee asserted.

She was campaigning for Trinamul candidate Nurul Islam Choudhury, who is pitted against two-time MP Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, president of All India United Democratic Front. The polling for Dhubri Lok Sabha seat will take place in the third and final phase of polling in Assam.