Border villages in Bengal's Murshidabad caught in whirlpool of infiltration politics, identity fears

Jalangi: Illegal immigration from Bangladesh has emerged as a pivotal issue in Murshidabad's border belt ahead of the West Bengal assembly polls, pushing Jalangi, Bhagabangola and Lalgola to the frontline of the state's most polarising political battle.

In this Muslim-majority district, where seven assembly seats lie along or close to the Bangladesh border, the campaign is driven by allegations of illegal immigration, fake identity cards and claims of altered demography of the region.

The BJP accuses the ruling TMC of allowing infiltration for vote-bank politics. The TMC, on the other hand, alleges that the BJP was using the issue to target Bengali-speaking Muslims and polarise voters.

The Congress and the Left accuse both of turning a troubled frontier into an electoral theatre.

But in the villages along the riverine Bagri belt, the language of politics often sounds very different from that of life.

The border floodlights come on after dusk in Jalangi's Char Bhabanipur. Beyond the embankment, across a dark stretch of the Padma river, lies Bangladesh.

There is no fence here, just the river.

At Sadikhanr Char village in Jalangi, where a narrow mud road ends at the river, 58-year-old farmer Abdul Rahim keeps his Aadhaar card, voter slip, land deed and his father's ration card in a plastic pouch.

"When security officials come to the village, they ask for papers. We have lived here for generations. Yet every few months, we are asked to show that we are not from Bangladesh," he said.

Rahim's two bighas of land have been eroded by the Padma. His elder son now works in Kerala.

"What will infiltration give me? I need work, a proper embankment and my name on the ration list and voter list, so that I can avail the benefits of government schemes," he said.

The border with Bangladesh in Murshidabad district stretches for more than 125 km. At several places in Jalangi, Bhagabangola and Lalgola, the river is the border.

According to government data provided to Parliament in December, there have been 1,104 infiltration attempts along the Indo-Bangladesh border between January and November 2025, up from 977 in 2024.

During the same period, 2,556 people were arrested, marginally higher than the 2,525 arrests in 2024. Since 2014, 8,632 infiltration attempts and 21,407 arrests have been recorded.

The data also highlighted the scale of the fencing problem. Of the 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border, only 3,239 km, or 79.08 per cent, has been fenced so far. Nearly 857 km remains unfenced.

West Bengal, which shares a 2,217-km border with Bangladesh, accounts for more than half of the international frontier.

For the BJP, those figures have become a campaign weapon. Senior party leaders have alleged that undocumented migrants are being settled in Murshidabad and other districts with political patronage.

The party claims nearly 450 km of the Bangladesh border in West Bengal remains unfenced because the TMC government has not provided land for it to facilitate "infiltrators", who eventually become the ruling party's vote bank.

"Murshidabad is changing because the TMC allowed infiltration for votes. People want strong borders, proper identification and an end to illegal entry," BJP district president Gouri Shankar Ghosh said.

The BJP has repeatedly argued that illegal immigration from Bangladesh has altered the demography of Murshidabad, Malda, North Dinajpur and parts of North 24 Parganas.

The TMC dismisses the charge as an attempt to polarise a Muslim-majority district.

"They call every poor Muslim an infiltrator. The BJP wants people to forget unemployment and price rise. They want fear to become the main issue," said TMC MP Abu Taher.

In the villages, however, a sense of unease has deepened after the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls.

Murshidabad recorded the state's third-highest deletions, with more than 7.48 lakh names removed.

The sharpest impact was in Samserganj, where around 92,000 names disappeared from the rolls. In neighbouring Lalgola, nearly 69,000 names were deleted, while in Bhagabangola, the figure is around 58,000.

In Lalgola's Kalmegha village, 70-year-old Ashfaq Mollah said his wife's name was missing from the electoral rolls despite her voting in every election since the 1980s.

"We went to the office three times with papers. They keep saying 'come later'. Now people are scared. If your name disappears (from the rolls), others start asking questions," he said.

Across Murshidabad, many Muslims say the rhetoric around infiltration has left them feeling permanently under suspicion. In Jalangi bazaar, a BJP poster near the bus stand read, "Seal the border, save Bengal".

A few yards away, a TMC banner accused the saffron party of branding every Bengali-speaking Muslim an infiltrator.

Residents say the absence of a border fence has also created a twilight economy of cattle smuggling, narcotics, fake currency and people moving across the river at night.

"Everyone knows what happens here. Cows go, ganja comes, sometimes cough syrup, sometimes people. But nobody wants to speak openly," said a tea stall owner.

Congress and Left leaders say both the BJP and the TMC are using the border to avoid talking about poverty, migration and the collapse of farming.

"Thousands of boys from these villages work in Kerala, Delhi and Bengaluru because there are no jobs here. The river eats away at the land every year. Yet the election is only about infiltration, and SIR," CPI(M) district secretary Jamir Molla said.