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Updated: Sep 24, 2019 21:03 IST

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president and Union home minister Amit Shah will address a gathering in Kolkata on October 1 on the issue of citizenship screening exercise at a time when panic over the issue has gripped large parts of the state.

“All permission and clearances needed for the event have been obtained. Shah will explain the party’s position and counter TMC’s misinformation campaign,” said BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha.

The venue is Netaji Indoor Stadium, Kolkata’s indoor stadium that can accommodate more than 10,000 people.

While chief minister Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly said that the National Register for Citizens (NRC) is meant only for Assam and that no such exercise will be carried out in West Bengal, senior BJP leaders, including state unit president Dilip Ghosh reiterated that the party would first ensure that the Citizenship Amendment Bill is passed following which NRC will be implemented to weed out infiltrators.

Over the past week, the Trinamool Congress, the Left and the Congress have repeatedly blamed the BJP for creating panic among the people in the name of driving out infiltrators, while BJP has blamed the TMC for deliberately creating tension among people in the name of NRC.

On Monday, TMC youth wing president and the chief minister’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee claimed that six people had died due to panic created over the citizenship screening exercise for the past one week. On Tuesday, state PWD minister Aroop Biswas, who visited the house of a person who committed suicide on Tuesday morning in Jalpaiguri district, dubbed the dead as “martyrs”.

“We have categorically stated repeatedly that Hindus need not fear. Not a single Hindu will have to leave the country. We will conduct NRC in Bengal and Mamata Banerjee can never stop us from doing so. This, however, is meant only for Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators. Shah will explain it again for the benefit of all,” Ghosh said.

“TMC is spreading confusion and Shah’s speech will bring an end to it,” Ghosh, a Lok Sabha MP from Bengal’s Midnapore constituency, added.

Even on Tuesday, while addressing an event in West Midnapore district, Mamata Banerjee reiterated that there will be no NRC in West Bengal.

“Standing on the holy land of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, I am telling you that there will be no NRC, no NRC and no NRC in Bengal,” she said in Midnapore. On September 19, Mamata Banerjee met Amit Shah in New Delhi and registered her opposition to the ‘harassment of genuine Indian citizens in Assam’.

A day after the meeting, she had said, “I met the Union home minister to specifically address the issue of NRC in Assam. I am reassuring you that there will be no NRC in Bengal. Before they touch any of you, I will have to be thrown out first.”

The same day, she announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for the kin of two persons whose deaths were attributed to panic over NRC.

A joint motion of the TMC, Left and the Congress has already been passed in the state Assembly emphasizing that Bengal needs no citizenship screening exercises.