Mamata Banerjee on Monday scoffed at outlandish claims by Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition, asking how 17 lakh Rohingya people — with an estimated total global population of barely 20 lakh — were in Bengal.
The BJP leader had said all Bengali-speakers need not be Bengali and millions of the Rohingya people were enrolled as voters in Bengal.
“A BJP leader has claimed that there are 17 lakh Rohingya people here and that their names must be removed from the voter list. I ask him, what is the actual global strength of the Rohingya people?” the chief minister.
Even on Monday, Adhikari said how his party would not allow a single Rohingya to remain on the Bengal electoral roll.
Mamata advised caution.
“You should study before making such statements.... Where did you get 17 lakh from? There may be people from Myanmar, but does that mean everyone is a Rohingya?” she asked.
The Rohingya people are currently stateless and predominantly follow Islam. They belong to the Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group. They are originally from the Rakhine state of Myanmar. They speak Rohingya, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Bengali–Assamese branch, closely related to the Chittagonian dialect
of Bangladesh.
“How do the Rohingya, the people from Myanmar become Bengali-speakers? How does that happen? You should stop and think before making such claims,” she said.
Unofficial estimates by rights groups suggest there are around 23,000 Rohingya refugees in India.
Mamata cited a purported notification from the Centre, which states: “All State Governments and UT administrations shall set up adequate holding centres in each district under a nodal officer to detain illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.”
Responding to her statement, Adhikari later made vague, odiously communal claims regarding Muslims in the Bengal electorate.
“Not a single name of Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi Muslims will be in the voter list. A total of 2.33 crore illegal voters have been found in Bengal. The Election Commission has been informed. If Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshi Muslims are excluded from the list, Trinamool has no chance of winning,” he claimed.