Mamta ji wants to unite the Opposition and also lead it to Victory in the next General Elections and thereby take a long shot at becoming the Prime Minister of India. However she has not given a second thought to her announcement that she was willing to accommodate more than 40 lakhs illegal migrants from Bangladesh into West Bengal.
She is just not bothered that these 40 lakhs have been identified as illegal entrants into India through a Supreme Court mandated and supervised exercise. This exercise had in fact commenced during the Congress led UPA government itself. Also many of these illegal entrants are members of fanatic organisations with extreme views on social and other matter. Still the West Bengal CM is not taking into account the fact that her adversarial stand on Assam’s draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) will hurt national security, complain intelligence officials and political leaders, including many from her own Trinamool Congress (TMC) Party.
A very senior TMC leader, said that Banerjee’s reaction on the issue was nothing but an attempt to please her vote-bank in Bengal, comprising the minority community. Lakhs of illegal immigrants already settled even in Kolkata, have been issued voter ID cards. These numbers, will keep increasing if the WB does not act decisively to stop the influx.
“Around 140 out of Bengal’s 294 Assembly seats are determined by minority voters. This is what is prompting her to speak out in favour of the 40 lakh individuals. Bengal has a huge number of illegal immigrants who came here from Bangladesh and have become the core voters of our party. So if we do not take a pro immigrant stand, we will not be able to keep that vote-bank intact, which could very much affect our winning prospects,” said the senior TMC leader.
However, they also know that in the long run it will harm the TMC Party itself.
“I think the strong stand being taken by Mamata Banerjee could backfire on us in Bengal because it is hurting the sentiments of the state’s original Bengalis who number around 8 crore, out of the total 9 crore population of the state. The original inhabitants of Bengal may feel that the Chief Minister, in trying to protect her vote-bank, is compromising on the interests of Bengalis”, the TMC leader added.
“It is alarming to see how the demography in border areas near Malda, Basirhat, Baduria, Bongaon, Sundarbans, among others, has changed over the last few years. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have slowly outnumbered the original residents of these areas, leading to micro-migration, out of fear of turning into a minority. For example, at a village in Malda district, bordering Bangladesh, the Hindu families migrated out of the area to the main town of Malda as they were slowly outnumbered by the aliens, and feared attacks from the immigrant community,” said an intelligence source.
According to officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), intelligence agencies have been regularly sharing inputs that ISI supported organisations, specifically the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and its smaller affiliates that are active in Bangladesh, are keenly watching the situation in Assam.
“These terror groups are in touch with some Rohingya Muslims who have managed to enter India or are planning to enter India. These people are very susceptible to indoctrination and can easily take up arms at the first sign on any kind of friction. We are keeping an eye on social media and we can see that an attempt is being made to give the NRC issue a religious overtone, to make it look as if the Indian government is identifying and targeting only Muslims. With a BJP government in Assam and at the Centre, the rhetoric of some of the Opposition leaders is strengthening this belief. If this is not controlled then it will lead to an ugly situation including large scale communal violence that will be abetted by the Lashkar operatives who have managed to enter the country as immigrants”, said a senior MHA official. Lashkar, through its charity wing, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation, has established strong contacts with the Rohingya Muslims.
Senior BJP leader and vice president of Bengal BJP, Jayprakash Mazumdar, while speaking said, “The draft has been prepared by an autonomous body, the NRC, under the observation of the Supreme Court. It was not the BJP that has done this. The way she is reacting shows that she is trying to please a particular community. There is nothing humanitarian about this. Mamata Banerjee currently is in a situation where if she stays silent, her vote-bank will be offended, and if she speaks then the original Bengalis will be offended. But she chose to speak and please her core voters. She has taken an anti-Bengali stand.We have demanded an NRC for Bengal as well because it is a question of our right as a Bengali and as an Indian to see that no illegal immigrants settle in the country, as that will pose as a threat to national security.”
A BJP leader said, “The CPM had let illegal immigration happen in Bengal when they were in power because these migrants acted as their vote-bank and worked as their cadre. When Mamata Banerjee came to power, these people were tapped by the TMC, which saw them as an easy way to remain in power. The seed was sown by the CPM, which is being cultivated by the TMC government in Bengal.”
Bengal shares a long and porous border of 2,217 km with Bangladesh, large parts of which are riverine and so unfenced. This creates a major obstacle for the security forces to check illegal immigrants from coming in Bangladesh.
Border areas like Hakimpur in Uttar Dinajpur district, Basirhat, Baduria, Bongaon, Ghojadanga and Angrail in North 24 Parganas district, Sunderbans in South 24 Parganas district are largely used by illegal immigrants to cross over into India primarily because of the riverine terrain there, according to BSF officials in Bengal.
Though most of the land border areas have been fenced, the immigrants and their touts use the river routes to enter India. Much of the riverine borders remain un-fenced, which helps them in sneaking into India.
