Mamata's Dangerous Regionalism a Threat to National Unity

The ECI's exercise of locating illegal immigrants is being branded by her as an attack on Bengali-speaking people, an 'India against Bengal' narrative so as to weaken her opposition BJP.

- SUGATO HAZRA

India's Supreme Court recently observed that encouragement given to regionalism by political parties is dangerous to the unity and integrity of India. The bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi criticised the tendency of regional parties to openly promote regionalism and seek votes during elections.

The honourable Justices felt that such open promotion of regionalism is a greater threat to the nation than even communalism. The problem is that the target political parties and their leaders pay little heed to such wise observations and carry on notwithstanding. This was seen when Trinamool supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in a public meeting on 21 July, arrogantly denounced the Election Commission of India (ECI) for its move on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

She threatened to engage in protest movements when the EC starts SIR in West Bengal. Currently, the same is going on in Bihar, where more than 50 lakh untraced voters were located and deleted from the electoral rolls.

This is just one recent example of Mamata Banerjee's shrill protest over constitutional bodies or national legislations. She cried foul over a Home Ministry directive to all states on the identification and deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

The notice mentioned that the process had to be supervised by identified nodal officers selected from different Central forces. State officials were asked to report to these nodal officers. Mamata Banerjee objected to this since there was no assigned role for the state police. She winked at the fact that citizenship is a Central subject. Clearly, her regional aspirations contradicted even the constitutional provisions.