Tathagata Roy, a member within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former governor of Meghalaya, has recently stirred controversy with his remarks. Roy’s post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, have spread furore after he mentioned that the home ministry should check genitalia of male candidates to check the religion of people seeking citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act, “The test of the religious status of a male must be CIRCUMCISION OR OTHERWISE.”
TMC is raining disinformation in West Bengal about CAA. Chances of people being misled are increasing by the day. Union Home Ministry must wake up and CLARIFY THE FOLLOWING WITHOUT DELAY:
1. How would a Hindu fugitive from Islamic torture in Bangladesh who entered India with only…— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) March 17, 2024
On March 17, the TMC immediately responded to the statement, where the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Thakur called the statement part of a regressive mind-set and an insult to Bengal and its people.
Today, former Governor of Meghalaya and ex-@BJP4Bengal State President, @tathagata2, sunk to new depths of BIGOTRY by suggesting that clinical tests should be performed to determine one’s religion based on circumcision, and citizenship should be granted accordingly.
This… pic.twitter.com/jNDfvlBDPh
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) March 17, 2024
The former BJP West Bengal state president is no stranger to raking controversy with his words. In 2019, he gave a statement in support of a retired army colonel who had called for the boycott of Kashmiris and Kashmiri goods, according to the Indian Express.
A day after his statement, Roy, who describes himself on his X account as “Right-wing Hindu thinker,” clamped back at the uproar and said there can be only two possible scenarios for the uproar. One, he says, could be that people are trying to hide their Muslim identity out of fear of being excluded from the CAA benefits, or secondly, those criticising his suggestion lack education and “have never faced a medical examination.”
He also stated in another reply to a post criticising him on the website, remarking “Big deal about checking whether a male is circumcised or not!”
Kunal Ghosh, senior TMC leader, also commented on the issue, saying that Roy has been “crossing all boundaries.” “We HAVE NO tolerance towards bigots who perpetuate religious discrimination in the form of such lowly and vulgar jibes, which also reflects upon the ridiculous narratives that @BJP4India enables and promotes in the country.”
The BJP-led government recently notified the rules for implementing the CAA in March, just days before the Model Code of Conduct for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections was about to be implemented.
The recently notified CAA seeks to grant citizenship to people belonging to Hindu, Jain, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, and Parsi communities who have migrated to India on or before December 31, 2014, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. This move has restarted the debate over the CAA’s implications for religious minorities and immigration policies in India after the act received widespread protests in 2019-2020.
Opposition parties, including the Trinamool Congress, have criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), decrying it as discriminatory. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has also called the CAA as a mere “election gimmick,” and has stated that its implementation is designed to oppress certain communities.
According to India Today, Banerjee has also declared that her government in West Bengal will not enforce the CAA.
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