Guwahati: The Congress and the All India United Democratic Front were responsible for the recent clashes in Assam as they allegedly encouraged illegal immigration, a BJP leader alleged on Saturday demanding that the Centre should immediately seal the Indo-Bangladesh border.
“Two parties are responsible for the current situation. It is the Congress and the AIUDF who are encouraging illegal immigration for the sake of vote bank politics,” BJP national executive member and state spokesperson Sarbananda Sonowal told reporters here.
Sonowal said that the LoC in Kashmir was sealed with electric fencing in one and half years and the 1,000 km international border in Jammu, Punjab and Rajasthan were fenced in two years.
“However, the goverment has not been able to seal the 272 km Indo-Bangaldesh border in Assam for 27 years since the Assam Accord was signed in 1985,” he said.
He said that during UPA-I, the then minister of state for home Sriprakash Jaiswal had said that over 57 lakh Bangladeshis illegally entered Assam, besides another 50 lakh in West Bengal, 17 lakh in Bihar and 12 lakh in Delhi.
“However, when Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde was asked the other day in Parliament about illegal immigration, he was not able to give any figure. The question is where have all the old data vanished?” Sonowal asked.
The BJP leader urged the government to urgently start work on updating the National Register of Citizens so that names of illegal immigrants could be struck off from voters lists.
Regarding the allegation that the NDA government of A B Vajpayee also took no action against infiltration, he said “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is in his second term, while Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is serving his third term. Instead of blaming their predeceesors, they should take immediate action.”
Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday charged the BJP and AGP with “playing politics” over the recent violence in Assam and said his government had done its best to prevent illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
“They (AGP and BJP) are only playing politics. They have no interest in deporting foreigners. What did they do when they were in power?” Gogoi told reporters here.
“AGP leader Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was twice the Chief Minister. What did he do?” he added.
Gogoi said the Congress government had intensified border patrolling besides strengthening riverine policing and floodlighting the Indo-Bangladesh border.
“No other government had taken as much effort as I have to stop infiltration. I have even constituted thana committees for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants. But nobody comes forward to identify foreigners,” he said.
Regarding the charge made by BJP leader L K Advani over inaction in updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Gogoi said: “It is my government who initiated measures to update the NRC. When Advaniji was Union Home Minister, he never spoke on the issue.”
Gogoi reiterated there were no illegal infiltrators in the camps for displaced persons of the ethnic violence.
“If there are any foreigners, they (AGP and BJP) should prove it. The statement made by them are false,” he said. (PTI)