BJP's Suvendu demands NRC in Bengal, reiterates issue of illegal immigration from Bangladesh

Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, told reporters here that BJP-ruled states are in favour of implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the refusal of the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal is baffling and shows their lack of concern to check infiltration.

Kolkata: Amid the row over “ghost voters” making their way into the electoral rolls in West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party has renewed its call to start the process of having a National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state – a move the ruling Trinamool Congress has always vowed to oppose.

With the assembly polls little more than a year away, Suvendu Adhikari, a BJP heavyweight in West Bengal, said on Sunday that all political parties should support the process of having the NRC for the state to deal with the problem of the influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

He warned that unabated illegal migration from Bangladesh might soon change the demographic pattern of West Bengal.

Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the legislative assembly of West Bengal, made the comment even as the BJP had a war of words with the TMC over the alleged enrolment of “ghost voters” in several constituencies of the state. The BJP cited the unnatural rise in the number of voters at Champahati in Baruipur constituency of the state to accuse the TMC of helping the illegal migrants get enrolled as the voters.

The TMC turned the table and criticised the Election Commission for enrolling voters without adequate physical verification so that the BJP could reap the political advantage out of it.

“See how terrorist outfits, like Ansarullah Bangla, of Bangladesh are spreading their tentacles in one district after another in West Bengal. See how the demography is changing, particularly in the border districts of the state,” he told journalists in Kolkata. “What are the police and state administration doing? They are looking the other way,” he said, adding that having the NRC for West Bengal was the only way to detect the infiltrators and the “jihadi elements” and foil their subversive plots. “All political parties should support the demand for having an NRC in West Bengal. Once BJP comes to power in the 2026 assembly polls, we will make it happen in the state,” he said.

He said that the TMC’s opposition to the demand for NRC in West Bengal showed its reluctance in stopping the illegal migration from Bangladesh.

The BJP, which emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal in 2021, has been trying to put Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress in a tight corner on the issue of the influx of illegal migrants from across the 2217-km-long stretch of the India-Bangladesh in the state.

The saffron party has been alleging that the TMC leaders were helping the migrants from Bangladesh to illegally acquire documents to claim citizenship of India with the state government turning a blind eye.

Kunal Ghosh, a senior TMC leader, said that the BJP leaders were harping on the demand for having the NRC in West Bengal in order to polarise the society for political interests. He said that the TMC would never let the conspiracy to alienate a section of the society with the NRC, which could result in branding genuine citizens of the country as illegal migrants and their detention in the camps.

Banerjee, the TMC supremo, herself, repeatedly vowed to oppose the proposal of having an NRC in West Bengal, even as Adhikari and the other leaders of the BJP in the state accused her of appeasing a particular community.

The chief minister recently said at the state assembly that if the BJP could prove its allegations about her having links with the fundamentalists and terrorists of Bangladesh, she would resign from the top office of the state government.