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Bangladeshis
to be deported, assures BJP in WB manifesto
Santanu Banerjee
Kolkata,
April 22: In its election manifesto released today, the West
Bengal BJP spoke much the same language on development and other
issues as its political rivals did. But where the state BJP seems
to have scored a point or two in an uninhibited manner has been
the issue of infiltration of ‘‘Bangladeshi Muslims into
the border districts in the state’’—an issue on which
almost all other political parties kept mum. The state BJP manifesto
said that, if voted to power, the party ‘‘will not only
stop the business of infiltration and smuggling, but will also try
to identify and deport all Bangladeshies illegally living in India.’’
Releasing the
manifesto, party’s former state president and Union Minister
of State for Communication Tapan Sikdar said here this afternoon
that ‘‘the infiltration has drastically changed the demographic
composition in the border districts’’.
Sikdar, accompanied
by the state party president Ashim Ghosh, accused the ‘‘CPI(M)
and the Congress of encouraging infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims
in the state to create a vote bank.’’ The party also promised
it would persuade the Centre to expedite the process of exchanging
the enclaves in Coochbehar district with the Bangladesh Government.
Taking a dig
both at the ruling and opposition parties, the manifesto announced:
‘‘We decry communalism of all varieties, and are committed
to building a genuine secular state.’’
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