Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday spoke extensively at his election rallies on illegal immigration from beyond the border with a clear hint that Bangladesh foreign minister A. K. Abdul Momen’s rebuttal of his repeated stress on infiltration had no impact on the BJP leader.
“I want to ask you, should infiltration inside Bengal be stopped or not…Friends, these infiltrators take away the employment of the youths. These infiltrators who come, snatch away the rice from the poor. Friends, if the situation of infiltration in Bengal remains the same, then mark my words, not only Bengal, the security of the entire nation will be in danger,” Shah said at an election rally in Nadia’s Tehatta.
In a recent interview with the online edition of Anandabazar Patrika, Shah had said since development had not reached the grassroots in the border areas of Bangladesh and the poor there still didn’t get food, infiltrators reached not only Bengal but also other parts of the country, including Jammu and Kashmir.
Shah’s argument drew sharp reaction from Bangladesh, India’s most trusted friend in the region that has shown stellar performance in economic growth in the last decade. Bangladesh has also won accolades from multilateral banks for its achievements in ensuring a better quality of life for its people, which gets reflected in its higher rankings, in comparison to India on human development indices.
Reacting to Shah’s comments, Momen had said: “There are many wise people in the world who do not see even after looking, and do not understand even after knowing. But if he (Shah) has said something like that, I would say his knowledge about Bangladesh is very limited. No one dies of hunger in our country now. There’s no monga (seasonal poverty and hunger in the northern districts of Bangladesh), either.”
Multiple BJP sources said although they were aware that Shah’s comments would not go down well in Bangladesh, the home minister had to talk about infiltration to pursue the party’s polarisation agenda in a bordering district like Nadia.
According to the 2011 census, Nadia has a Muslim population of around 27 per cent and so the BJP’s poll plan is to consolidate the Hindu population.
“Friends…(help us) form the BJP government on May 2, I’m assuring you that forget a human being, not even a bird will be able to fly in from the other side of the border…” Shah thundered during his address at Tehatta.
It was clear that he was trying to woo the Matua community, lower-caste Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh, as they play a key role in determining the electoral outcome in bordering areas of Nadia and North 24-Parganas.
Wooing the Matuas on Friday, Shah said: “Our brothers from the Matua community, from the Namshudra community, shouldn’t they get citizenship or not? This Didi (Mamata Banerjee) says ‘as long as I’m here, Matua and Namshudra communities will not get citizenship’. Arey Didi, how long have you been here? Your exit is ensured on May 2,” said Shah.
“Matua and Namshudra communities will be made Indian citizens with pride after May 2... Besides, a refugee welfare fund will be created with a corpus of Rs 100 crore and a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 will be provided to Matua leaders,” he added.
Furthering his agenda of polarisation, Shah reminded the people of Tehatta about some incidents of communal flare-up in the area in 2012.
“Friends, here in 2012, during Jagaddhatri Puja, the police had lathicharged, fired bullets... In all of Bengal, (one has to) move court for Durga immersion. I’m telling you (just) for once, elect a BJP government, then, no one will have to move court for Durga immersion…” Shah said.
Later, at another rally in North 24-Parganas’s Barrackpore, Shah said the BJP would win more than 92 of 135 seats which had gone to the polls in the first four phases of the voting.
