Deactivating Aadhaar cards political game: Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata, Feb 21: Claiming that Aadhaar cards were deactivated mostly of people from the Matua community, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday lashed out at the BJP alleging that it was a "political game" and the conspiracy was stopped by her party.
Speaking at the 'International Mother Language Day' programme held here, the Trinamool Congress supremo claimed that this conspiracy was hatched to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state.
"A dirty conspiracy was played in deactivating Aadhaar cards, we have stopped it. It is Bengal and not some other place. Do not forget that," she said.
She alleged that there are plans to set up detention camps in the state.
"Aadhaar cards of Matua community people have been deactivated. Who gave you the right to do so? They don't even know why the card was deactivated," Banerjee said.
Maybe after five years, these people will be called foreigners, the TMC supremo claimed adding: "This is a dirty political game keeping in mind the vote bank."
Attacking the BJP government at the Centre, she alleged that the Aadhaar cards are being deactivated as a precursor to bring in the NRC.
Banerjee has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking reasons behind the deactivation of Aadhaar cards taken without the state government's knowledge.
Referring to Tuesday's incident of a Sikh IPS officer, who was deputed to prevent senior West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari from visiting restive Sandeshkhali, being allegedly dubbed as a 'Khalistani' by saffron party workers, Banerjee said that incident damaged the reputation of the state.
"What was the fault of one Punjabi officer? He was doing his duty. How can you call him a Khalistani just because he was wearing a turban? There are so many Muslims who are IAS, IPS, and WBCS officers. Will you call them Pakistanis?" she said.
Banerjee stated that there are Punjab Regiment and Gorkha Regiment in the armed forces but there is no Bengal Regiment despite the Bengalis having a huge contribution to the country's freedom struggle.
"As per @BJP4India, every person wearing a TURBAN is a KHALISTANI. I VEHEMENTLY CONDEMN this audacious attempt to undermine the reputation of our SIKH BROTHERS & SISTERS, revered for their SACRIFICES and UNWAVERING DETERMINATION to our nation," she posted on X.
"We stand firm in protecting Bengal's social harmony and will take stern lawful measures to prevent any attempts to disrupt it," Banerjee said.
The BJP, however, denied the charge and accused the police officer of not performing his duty following Constitutional norms.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
