A rift is surfacing among protesters against a controversial citizenship law over plans to meet Home Minister Amit Shah.
During the protest at Shaheen Bagh area yesterday, a protester named Asif Toofani announced: “We are ready to meet Amit Shah and we along with the elderly women, will visit him.” 
However, some women opposed Toofani’s statement.
A protesting woman told IANS: “Who is he to take this decision? This demonstration belongs to the people and I shall not visit him (Shah). However, if the elderly people decide that we should go, we are ready.” 
While some of the protesters insist they will not meet Shah, others say if there’s a meeting, all the protesters will go to meet the minister.
Meanwhile in Kolkata, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Dilip Ghosh went ballistic over the protests at Shaheen Bagh and in Kolkata’s Park Circus, saying some “uneducated, poverty-stricken women have been made to sit on the road for money and biryani” and to listen to speeches of leaders like Congress leader P Chidambaram and Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
“Some uneducated, ordinary, poverty-stricken people, who lack consciousness, have been made to sit on the road. They are being given money and fed biryani daily, that too out of funds coming from abroad,” Ghosh said.
The objective of Shaheen Bagh or Park Circus was to show that the people were with them, he added.
Targeting senior Chidambaram and Karat, the BJP MP said: “I am surprised. National leaders of a lot of parties come to Bengal, but nobody listens to their speeches. So people like Karat or Chidambaram address gatherings at Shaheen Bagh when they are in Delhi, or at Park Circus when they are here. 
Known for his penchant to kick up controversies, Ghosh last month wondered why none of those protesting in the winter under the open sky at Shaheen Bagh had fallen sick or died. People from nearby areas also visited the protest site time to time, he added.