In the midst of the furor surrounding Assam’s NRC for driving out illegal Bangladeshis from the state of Assam, Times Now has accessed the details of a 2005 UPA government meeting chaired by the then prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh along with top cabinet ministers, Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram. It reveals how the details of a massive influx of illegal Bangladeshis had come to light back then and how it was being seen as a mammoth change in Assam’s demographics. According to Times Now, the source that provided these details to it was also a part of this meeting and had apprised the prime minister along with the two ministers about the precarious situation in Assam caused by a massive influx of illegal Bangladeshis. However, Times Now has not disclosed the details of this source.
It has also been revealed that while discussing visa issue with Bangladesh everyone in the meeting was hailing India’s close relations with Bangladesh, this source said that given the kind of influx of Bangladeshis in Assam, a day will come when a Bangladeshi will be the chief minister of Assam. By this, he clearly meant that notwithstanding India’s close and friendly relations with Bangladesh at least on paper, the situation was fragile and if illegal influx of Bangladeshis continues unabated from Bangladesh to Assam that would make Bangladeshis a dangerously powerful community in Assam and they will be influential enough to get a chief minister elected out of their own community. This reflected upon the magnitude of influx into Assam and the unprecedented change in demographics in the North-eastern state of India.
Has the Congress party put vote bank above national security? asks @navikakumar #CongIllegalsJumla pic.twitter.com/SZclHsoZrA
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) August 1, 2018
Reportedly, Pranab Mukherjee acknowledged this serious issue and spoke about similar problems being faced in the state of West Bengal. Therefore, the top minister in the UPA government was easily able to understand the ramifications of large scale influx from the neighbouring country. This corroborates the fact that the UPA government was aware about this issue throughout its 10-year tenure and yet failed to take any action or even condemn this publicly. Furthermore, as per the Times Now report even P. Chidambaram understood the tight situation and took cognisance of the same. He acknowledged that the influx of illegals posed a serious challenge and stressed on the need to have strict visa rules in place for Bangladeshis. He is also said to have stated that national security is paramount thereby suggesting that the influx of Bangladeshis must not be taken lightly and that this amounts to a threat to national security.
It is utterly shameful that those in charge of country’s security and governance were apprised and made well aware of the tight situation created by massive influx of Bangladeshis in the state of Assam way back in 2005 itself. Not only this, two of the top cabinet colleagues took cognisance and reiterated how this posed a serious threat to national security and especially the two states which are susceptible to influx from neighbouring Bangladesh. However, for nine years that UPA remained in power, the Manmohan led government failed to take any action whatsoever. And now that Modi government is finally taking stringent steps to bring about a solution, the Congress and its allies like Mamata Banerjee are acting as if there was no immigration threat in the first place. In fact, instead of accepting their incompetence, Congress leaders have started labeling those recognised as illegals by the Supreme Court monitored probe as Indians. Even after understanding the seriousness of the situation, the Congress is taking the side of those advocating a ‘civil war’ and ‘bloodbath’ if illegals are thrown out. Times Now deserves praise for exposing this power hungry outfit which once used to be a national level political party.
