Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday penned a poem and posted it on the social media, taking a swipe at the BJP and slamming the draft National Register of Citizens in Assam.
The poem, titled ‘Identity’ and written in both Bengali and English, starts with a series of questions regarding surname, religion, language, food habits and political preferences. Those who failed to come up with satisfactory answers would be termed “traitors,” it warns.
“Who are you? What’s your identity? Where do you live? Where did you study? Tell us. Or, you are a traitor,” Banerjee wrote on Twitter.
“Whom do you support? Have your previous five generations been registered? What do you wear?… You must be an illegal immigrant,” she wrote in the poem, taking a dig at the draft NRC that left out more than 40 lakh persons as they were allegedly not able to produce necessary identification documents.
The Trinamool Congress supremo also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s weekly radio address ‘Mann ki Baat’ as well as centre’s many initiatives, including Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation’s GOBAR (Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources), Jan Dhan scheme, online payment app Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) and linking of Aadhaar with mobile numbers.
“Do you listen to Mann ki Baat? Do you write against the ruler? Does your phone have Aadhaar? Are you against the oppressor? Then there is no place for you. Then you are an extremist,” she wrote.
Banerjee also maintained that those who have no knowledge about the ruler’s power and its agencies and dare to protest against its oppression are often termed “anti-nationals”.
“Are you vocal in protest? Are you against the ruler? Then you are anti-national. So you get lost,” she added.
IANS