Kolkata, Aug 3: The BJP on Sunday claimed that Indian citizens from West Bengal, who have been working in other states, were being deprived of their livelihood by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and, in some cases, by Rohingyas.
BJP’s state unit president Samik Bhattacharya asserted that Indian Muslims and those Hindus who have come to the country from Bangladesh owing to persecution have nothing to worry about as long as the saffron party is in there.
He also alleged that the ruling Trinamool Congress is afraid that the ECI will identify fake voters if the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is conducted in Bengal.
“Genuine Indian citizens from Bengal, working in other states, are having their livelihood snatched by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and, in some cases, by Rohingyas,” the BJP leader said while addressing a press conference here.
Bhattacharya said that illegal voters in West Bengal will be identified just as has happened in Bihar during the SIR of electoral rolls.
“Just the indication that SIR may be done in Bengal has evoked so much fear, so imagine what will happen when it will really take place,” he said.
The BJP leader said that the biggest problem that West Bengal is facing is “radicalisation”, maintaining that the political upheavals in Bangladesh in the recent months have had some fallout in some border districts of West Bengal.
Bhattacharya said that the centre has pointed out some banned organisations starting to get active within the country, with a north Bengal district being at the focal point.
He said that on this issue raised by the Union government, several BJP-ruled and non-BJP-ruled states have started checking the identities of migrant labourers from West Bengal.
“Those apprehended during such checks have admitted to being Bangladeshis and that they have obtained fake identity cards here,” the BJP leader said.
Justifying the Delhi Police’s action, pointing to “Bangladeshi language”, the BJP leader said that there is a distinctive difference in the dialect of the Bengali language spoken and written in West Bengal with that of Bangladesh.
The TMC on Sunday posted a letter, on its X handle, claiming that the officer-in-charge of a police station in New Delhi has written to the Banga Bhawan in the national capital, seeking a translator for “Bangladeshi national language” following the arrest of eight people, suspected to have illegally crossed over into India from the neighbouring country.
Terming Bengali as ‘Bangladeshi national language’ insulting: Mamata
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee on Sunday lashed out at the Delhi Police for referring to the Bengali language as “Bangladeshi national language” in a purported letter, alleging that it was “insulting, anti-national and unconstitutional”.
The letter, linked to an investigation of a case under the ‘Foreigners’ Act’, was written to the officer-in-charge of Banga Bhawan, the official guest house of the state government in the national capital.
The Trinamool Congress supremo described the Centre as anti-Bengali and urged all to stage protests against such “anti-Constitutional language to insult and humiliate Bengali-speaking people of India”. (PTI)