Bihar Assembly Elections 2025: Why Modi-Shah focus on ‘infiltrators’ may not hold much water

Patna: In the last six months, whenever both the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have visited Bihar, one common issue has been raised by both: infiltrators in Bihar.

Even on Saturday, before winding up his two-day Bihar visit, Shah reminded his party workers to pull out all the stops so that the NDA gets two-thirds majority “and then we will throw out all the infiltrators out of the State.”

In theory, this call by Shah may energise the party cadre, but deep within the partymen too know that the infiltration issue has become irrelevant in the sense that out of 65 lakh bogus voters (of the 7.2 crore Bihar voters), weeded out of the electoral roll in Bihar, not one voter has been struck off the roll in the name of outsider/infiltrator.

“Amit Shah is Union Home Minister, and the second most influential person in the Government. He should release the list of names of how many infiltrators have been struck off the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise carried out in Bihar so far,” said Opposition leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.

The undeclared chief ministerial candidate of the Mahagatbandhan said that as per the affidavit submitted by the EC before the Supreme Court, not one infiltrator has been identified in Bihar so far, although Modi-Shah combine keep harping on ‘ghuspaithiya’ (infiltrators) from Bangladesh and Nepal to polarise votes.

“Modi is the PM since 2014. Amit Shah is the Union Home Minister since 2019. Nitish is Bihar CM since 2005. If still infiltrators have sneaked into Bihar, as they (Modi-Shah) allege in one rally after another, and their State-level leaders too keep parroting what their masters say, who should be held responsible for infiltration in Bihar (or elsewhere),” wondered senior RJD leader and former Rajya Sabha member Shivanand Tiwary.

He too cited the EC affidavit to buttress his point that all these talks of infiltrations are complete hogwash.

Misplaced focus

Poll strategist-cum politician Prashant Kishor, whose newly floated party Jan Suraaj will throw its hat in the Assembly poll ring, says more than infiltration, Shah and Modi should focus on the corruption charges against the NDA ministers in the Nitish regime.

"At least three ministers – Samrat Choudhary, Mangal Pandey, Ashok Choudhary – besides the Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal, are in the dock due to corruption charges,” said PK, as Prashant Kishor is commonly known.

“The issue of unemployment, price rise, question paper leak in every exam and migration needs to be addressed first rather than completely irrelevant topics like infiltration, which Shah and Modi raise in every election to consolidate Hindu voters,” said PK.

Jharkhand lesson

Political experts cite the Jharkhand election held in December 2024, where the BJP raised the issue of ‘ghuspaithiya’ (infiltration) but found no takers as the issue fell flat at the hustings.

“Jharkhand was part of the undivided Bihar till November 2000. All the top BJP leaders, during the 2024 Jharkhand Assembly election, much like presently in Bihar, raised the issue of infiltration as Jharkhand too shares the border with West Bengal and Bangladesh.

"But the issue did not yield rich dividends to the BJP which had to bite the dust in the Assembly poll,” said an Editor of a Hindi daily, who earlier worked in Jharkhand before shifting to Bihar.