Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Ram Madhav on Friday said Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee saved Assam by ensuring it did not join Pakistan, The Indian Express reported.

“We are followers of Dr Shayma Prasad Mookerjee, providing adequate security to persecuted Bengalis is our tribute to the great leader from Bengal,” Madhav said at an event in Silchar commemorating the 81st birth anniversary of BJP leader Bimolangshu Roy. “Dr Mookerjee actually saved Assam from being a part of Pakistan. Assam was a Group-C state and was supposed to be a part of East Pakistan during partition but Dr Mookerjee along with Gopinath Bardoloi saved it.” Bardoloi was a freedom fighter and the first chief minister of Assam.

“Jinnah divided India and Dr Mookerjee divided Pakistan by saving Assam, so this place is important for us,” he added. “Barak Valley is the part of Assam, which is also known as the land of refugees where most persecuted Hindu Bengalis took shelter and this place has nurtured BJP’s ideology since initial days.” Madhav said no genuine Bengali would be deprived of citizenship even if their names did not get listed in the National Register of Citizens.

The final list of Assam’s National Register of Citizens was published on August 31. Nineteen lakh people were excluded from the list. Madhav blamed previous governments for anomalies in the list. “In 1951, NRC was done in the entire country except Assam due to inefficiencies and disagreement of past governments,” he claimed. “The Congress government successfully passed the Assam Accord in 1985 but ignored NRC and delayed the process by 70 years.”

However, the BJP leader said the Centre would fix the problems in the final list. “Our government is committed to protecting all the genuine Indians along with persecuted Hindus who came to India till December 31, 2014,” he asserted.

Madhav said by abrogating Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed he could fix historical errors. “Acceptance is in DNA of India, we gave shelter to Christians, Jews, Parsis in past, you can find Indian Jews in Israel till now,” Madhav said. “If India can give shelter to outsiders, we have the capacity of protecting our own people. Modi doesn’t hesitate to show his love for his culture and he will protect the victims of partition by bringing in the Citizenship Amendment Bill.”

The bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act of 1955 in order to grant citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan if they have lived in India for six years, even if they do not possess necessary documents.

Madhav blamed former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for denying India Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of the country. “Gandhi wanted to develop villages but Nehru’s focus was on developing urban India,” he said. “On January 27, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi predicted that it will take 50 years for people of India to realise that Nehru’s ideas were wrong.” Madhav said the BJP would realise Gandhi’s vision of India.

‘Nobody will have to leave West Bengal’

Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday dismissed the idea of implementing the National Register of Citizens throughout the country, PTI reported.

Banerjee said the BJP would have to get past her before implementing NRC in the state. “I assure the people of West Bengal that do not worry if you have faith in me,” she said. “Nobody will have to leave West Bengal. You will continue to stay here as you have been all these years. If they [BJP] want to touch you, they would have to get past Mamata Banerjee first.”

The chief minister said the register was only meant for Assam. “I doubt whether it will at all be implemented anywhere else in the country,” she added. “Like us, Bihar has already said they will not implement it.”

Banerjee claimed some elements in the state, local BJP leaders and television channels were spreading the canard about an exercise to update the citizenship database in the state. “The only thing I will request you all to do is to make sure that you have your name in the voters’ list,” she added. “There is an ongoing renewal drive for the voters’ list. There is nothing else to do.”

Assembly elections are due in West Bengal in 2021. On Thursday, Banerjee met Amit Shah and told him that many genuine citizens were excluded from the citizens’ list in Assam.

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