Shah Vows To Evict 'Infiltrators' In Bengal After EC Purges Voters' List
Raising the infiltration issue and attacking the ruling party’s role in it to pull votes, Mr Shah told his party rally, “Bengal is a bordering state. It has a long land border. The Trinamul Congress government doesn't protect it.
Kolkata: Days after the Election Commission (EC) axed around 63.66 lakh names from the voters' list put another 60.6 lakh ‘under adjudication' in the first two phases of the special intensive revision (SIR) in poll-bound West Bengal, union home minister Amit Shah has claimed deletion of infiltrators’ names underway in the exercise and vowed to evict them once BJP comes to power in the state in the upcoming Assembly polls.
His comment from 'Parivartan Jatra', a public outreach campaign of BJP at Raidighi in Mathurapur of South 24 Parganas on Monday, is expected to trigger a controversy since Chief Electoral Officer West Bengal Manoj Agarwal had refused to divulge the deleted voters’ identities after the SIR roll publication last week and suggested the media to check them with the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and ministry of home affairs (MHA).
Raising the infiltration issue and attacking the ruling party’s role in it to pull votes, Mr Shah told his party rally, “Bengal is a bordering state. It has a long land border. The Trinamul Congress government doesn't protect it. It has allowed infiltrators here randomly. Now their names are being deleted only,” before targeting chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee.
“Still Mamata Didi has started feeling discomfort in her stomach. Mamata Didi, have patience. Not only deletion of names, we will ensure each and every infiltrator is selectively thrown out of Bengal after the BJP forms government here,” he said in his message to the CM. Interestingly, when Mr Agarwal was asked on February 28 whether the list of deleted voters had Rohingyas or other illegal immigrants, he said, “This is not related to our work. You can check it out with the FRRO and MHA.”
Mr Shah also accused the TMC of turning the state into a safe haven for ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ for appeasement politics to cement its votebank. He later blamed Ms Banerjee's party for unleashing deprivation and corruption in the state and predicted that if people would vote for the TMC this time, the CM’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee would take her seat to rule and exploit them.
Referring to the deprivation to the Matuas of the Citizenship Amendment Act, the union home minister alleged, “If Ms Banerjee won't have opposed the CAA, the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh would have got their citizenship by now. But I assure them that they won't lose their citizenship anyway as BJP is in power at the Centre.”
He then pointed out, “As far as corruption is concerned, Bengal’s image comes to the top among the states in the country thanks to TMC leaders” while slamming Ms Banerjee for nominating former state DGP Rajeev Kumar, who he claimed “was responsible for all frauds”, to Rajya Sabha. Mr Shah further argued that every newborn in the state has a debt of ₹77,000 on them because of the poor economy in the TMC rule.
In a bid to woo the state government employees and unemployed youth, the BJP stalwart announced sops for them. He promised that the BJP government would implement 7th pay commission in the state, start filling up of all the vacant posts by December 26 this year and give the job aspirants a five-year age relaxation in their application.
