Union Home Minister Amit Shah
Credit: PTI Photo
Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday urged voters in poll-bound Assam to re-elect BJP for the third straight term to allow the saffron party "identify the infiltrators from Bangladesh one-by-one"- an assurance that dominated the ruling party's pre-poll promise since 2014 and even before.
"In the past 10 years in power, the BJP government has stopped infiltration. But we will identify those who already entered during the Congress rule and have posed demographic threats. Elect the BJP government for the third term, let me assure today that we will not spare those who have settled, we will identify them one-by-one and expel," Shah said twice, first in Dibrugarh in eastern Assam and hours later in Dhemaji in North Assam.
In Dibrugarh, Shah laid the foundation for the second Assembly building and in Dhemaji, the Home Minister addressed the 10th Missing Youth Festival of the Mising community, one of the major tribes.
"For decades, Congress party allowed infiltration into Assam and used them as vote bank to stay in power. But today, our government has freed 1.26 lakh hectares of forest and government land from the Bangladeshi infiltrators," Shah said while referring to the ongoing eviction drives targetting the Bengali-speaking Muslims, whom BJP considers as infiltrators. "The infiltrators did not spare the land in the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev, Kaziranga National Park and even targetted and killed our rhinos. The demographic threat must be stopped, otherwise, Assam will face a lot of difficulties in the days ahead," Shah said in Dibrugarh.
In Dhemaji, Shah said infiltrators have become dominant in six districts: Dhubri, Goalpara, Darrang, Bongaigaon, Morigaon and Barpeta. "They were negligible in these districts but now they have become majority. You don't have to take up arms and guard the borders, the Himanta Biswa Sarma government will do so, just vote for BJP again."
Politics over foreigners:
The long problem of foreigners dominate politics in Assam and it gets louder before elections. During campaigns for elections since 2014, when Narendra Modi government came to power, BJP made the same promise of identifying and removing the infiltrators from Assam. But Opposition parties have often slammed BJP saying it failed to fulfill its promise despite being in power for 10 years in Assam and about 12 years at the Centre.