BJP to rake up infiltration issue across the country; ready with its ammunition

New Delhi, Sep 12: Gradually the issue of National Register for Citizenship (NRC), a Supreme Court-monitored exercise being done in Assam, is becoming a national issue for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party that is racking up the issue everywhere in the country.

Not only national president of the BJP Amit Shah but many other Sangh Pariwar affiliates are taking up the matter as for them infiltration is not confined to Assam but has spread across the country.

The issue was discussed in the recently concluded national executive of the BJP where the party resolved to take this issue to the logical end. Now Amit Shah has vowed to deport all Bangladeshi infiltrators from the country while attacking the Congress in poll-bound Rajasthan for the party criticizing the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

Meanwhile, the BJP is ready with all ammunitions against the Congress on the issue when its nation general secretary Ram Madhav said that the Congress leadership must learn from their forefather or the history. The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 was brought in by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru when forget about the BJP, Jan Sangh was not in existence. It talked about sending illegal immigrants out of Assam who had come from the erstwhile East Pakistan. But the vote bank politics did not allow the ruling dispensation to take any decisive action to the problem that goes back 1930s. This was the first attempt to start NRC.

Madhav said former Union minister of state for home P M Sayeed told Parliament in 1995 that illegal immigrants are coming from Bangladesh, in 1997 the then Union Home minister Indrajit Gupta told Parliament the number being around one crore, in 1998 Lt General S K Sinha's report on the issue, 1999 PM AB Vajpayee initiated the process regarding the NRC by providing first installment of funds and in 2005 Mamata Banerjee speaking against infiltration in West Bengal but no headway was made.

Now, the BJP leaders say that it is not the problem of Assam. Most of the states are having Bangladeshi infiltrators which are not only social, cultural, linguistic but law and order and security issue for the country besides demographic threat. Right from Assam to other northeastern state, West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala are the states where they are settled. BJP National vice president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe said that take a south bound train and you will realize the magnitude of the problem.

"This is not a problem of Assam but the entire northeastern region and many other parts of the country are facing the problem. There is a settlement in Bhayander in Maharashtra called Bangladeshi Basti. There are small hilltops around Mumbai and these Bangladeshi are getting settled there. Settling down in the forest area is not allowed but when police reached to get that vacated they were attacked. This is just two-three years old story. This is a vote bank politics for political parties," said the Rajya Sabha MP.

On the issue of sending them back, Ram Madhav was categorical and said, Bangladesh does not want to keep around 1 million Rohingya infiltrators. The country is in active negotiation with Myanmar to deport them. Official of Bangladesh visited Rakhine province to send them back. So India too will handle the issue with care but illegal migrants must be deported.