“Have tea with Gou Mutra…” Mamata Banerjee warns against UCC, calls Lok Sabha Election 2024 a fight for India’s freedom

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday lashed out at the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) over their election manifesto mentioning the implementation of the  Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Uniform Civil Code (UCC), calling it a threat to the diversity of India. Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress (TMC) for long have been alleging that people who already have their Indian credentials and have been a voter in India, do not need any fresh citizenship under CAA, insinuating that National Register of Citizens (NRC) when follows CAA would lead to people further losing their existing citizenship. Mamata Banerjee while speaking at a public meeting in Coochbehar claimed that her apprehensions have been cemented with BJP manifesto mentioning UCC, stating that people will losing their identity and individuality.

“Look at BJP manifesto. Didn’t I tell you that if CAA is the head of the fish, then the tail is NRC and in between you have the UCC. All of that will snatch the rights of the people. They will also decide what people should eat. Every morning they will tell people have tea with Gau-mutra (cow urine), they would dictate that people should consume something mixed with cow dung. They will also dictate how long people should sleep at night”, said the Chief Minister alleging that India and the constitution are at risk.

BJP had won 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in 2019, a number that had helped the saffron party eventually cross the 300 mark along with NDA. Mamata Banerjee has called the election 2024 battle, a fight for freedom. “They are propagating one nation, one election. That means there won’t be any democracy left, no federal structure would survive and there won’t be states left in India anymore. Democracy will be replaced with authoritarianism. They want one leader and one nation…one leader and one political speech”, she added.

She has been maintaining that people principally those who have migrated from Bangladesh during the 1972 Liberation War, under trying times, settled in West Bengal and elsewhere, will be at the risk of losing their citizenship if they go with fresh application for citizenship under CAA since they lack documentation. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, last Wednesday, had debunked the fears and alleged that Mamata Banerjee was trying to mislead the people. While he urged people to go ahead with CAA applications, he however didn’t mention as how people will go about applying for CAA when they lack proper documentation’s as mandated by the rules implemented on March 11, 2024. The CAA issue was at the heart of a massive political showdown between TMC and BJP in the run up to Bengal assembly election 2021, even though the bill was passed in December 2019. TMC since then had maintained that CAA, NRC or UCC will not be implemented in the state. Interestingly, the BJP manifesto for Lok Sabha 2024 released on Sunday, mentions CAA but has dropped NRC.