BJP president Amit Shah has issued a very strong statement against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The statement of Amit Shah corroborates the resolve that the BJP has shown as far as dealing with the issue of influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants is concerned. Apart from the demographic changes that are taking place in states like Assam, Odisha and West Bengal, the illegal influx of such immigrants is a direct threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. It has also led to the issue of potential religious conflicts and blatant conflict between the indigenous people and the illegal immigrants.
In fact, even the Bangladeshi government has been trying to abdicate its responsibility as far as its nationals are concerned. A Bangladeshi minister has recently said that lakhs of people who are in danger of being declared “illegal immigrants” in India are not Bangladeshi nationals. He also claimed that it was India’s problem to deal with and that Bangladesh had no role to play whatsoever. Therefore, the present situation can even lead to an international and cross-border crisis of sorts.
However, the Modi government has been steadfast in its intent of dealing with the crisis created by the immigrants. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) released recently by the Assam government had shown around 40 lakhs of the population of the state to be ineligible for inclusion in the NRC. It shows the resolve of the government of finally ending the pathetic situation created by the influx of Bangladeshi immigrants. The NRC got a shot in the arm when the Odisha government also took a positive step in tackling the situation created by immigrants. The state of Odisha acted by disenfranchising 137 suspected immigrants whose names currently feature on the electoral rolls. This was seen as a vindication of the NRC exercise that was carried out in Assam. This is also expected to give greater political demand for expulsion and deportation of all illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living in India.
Riding on the momentum in BJP’s favour on the issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, party president Amit Shah has stated that that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are like termites and that each one of them will be struck off the electoral roll. The BJP chief was speaking at a public meeting in Sawai Modhpur. Amit Shah also brought up the NRC exercise that was recently carried out in Assam and stated that, “the BJP government brought NRC and prima facie identified nearly 40 lakh (four million) illegal immigrants.” This is by far the strongest statement that has been issued on the controversy and political debate surrounding the influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. This clearly shows that the BJP is very confident about the widespread public support that is getting for taking an aggressive stance against the illegal migrants. It has realised that it only stands to gain out of this issue whereas the opposition parties are only being seen as hurdles to the much needed exercise of expelling the illegal immigrants.
It is high time that Mamata Banerjee led TMC, Congress and other pseudo secular parties realise that they have made a huge mistake by taking the side of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants instead of speaking in view of India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They now need to be wary of how the BJP goes ahead on this issue before the 2019 polls. Given the pro-illegal immigrants stance that they have taken, the pseudo secular opposition parties are bound to face huge losses in terms of votes and political power.