Yesterday at a training camp organised by the party's Delhi unit at Jhinjhouli in Haryana, BJP national president Kushabhau Thakre said that action will be taken under the provisions of law against the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in the Capital.

Earlier, at an internal Delhi BJP meeting held on August 6 -- chaired by Thakre -- a decision was taken to start a deportation drive against Bangladeshis. This was the first meeting to outline the party's agenda for the Assembly elections in November.

An Express Newsline investigation reveals that policemen have been visiting slums all over Delhi since mid-August to identify Bangladeshis. On August 16, jhuggi dwellers of Bhoomiheen Camp opposite the DDA flats in Kalkaji said that two policemen came there earlier in the week to find out if any Bangladeshis lived there. Even in East Delhi's Seemapuri -- where there is a well-established network of informers the police have been regularly visiting colonies in an attempt to flush out Bangladeshis.

BJP Delhi unit president Mange Ram Garg says that he has on several occasions spoken to Union Home Minister L.K. Advani about the ``Bangladeshi problem''. Garg says the deportation drive has been a continuous process ever since the BJP came to power in Delhi. There was one in 1992-93, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, another in 1994 and again in 1997.

``Is our country a dharamshala, that whoever wants to come and stay here can freely enter? The Government will take stringent measures to remove Bangladeshis from Delhi. It is a matter of national security. Apne desh ke log hi rahe, bahar ke desh ke nahin,'' says Garg.

Justifying this stand he explains: ``In the last four and a half years the population in Delhi has increased by 26 lakhs, there is too much pressure on the resources here. Outsiders should be removed''.

Though the police have not recently received any official deportation order, Commissioner V.N. Singh says : ``The Delhi police does help in identification. Anyway, there is no question of an order if there are foreigners living illegally in Delhi. It is the duty of the police to deport them''.

While the BJP has no alliance with the Shiv Sena in Delhi, Garg fully supports Shiv Sena MP Satish Pradhan's statement in Parliament on July 31. The MP said that the Sena would continue to work for the deportation of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants across the country, including Delhi. ``We will not allow any foreigners to get into the voters' list, get elected themselves and decide the destiny of the nation''.

``There are five lakh Bangladeshis in Delhi and we often hear of their involvement in bomb blasts. We will not allow such things to happen,'' said Pradhan.

Garg says: ``Our problem is that we don't have statehood, otherwise we would have dealt with the Bangladeshis immediately and swiftly. Also, we get no cooperation from the West Bengal government in identifying Bangladeshis''.

Identification is a problem as many of the Bangladeshis -- mainly concentrated in Seemapuri, Yamuna Pushta, Ohkla, Nizammudin, Jehangirpuri, Mayapuri and in certain pockets around Chittaranjan Park and Mayur Vihar -- have ration cards, voter identity cards and passports. Hence, official documents have little sanctity as far as the BJP government is concerned.

The government depends on the Election Commission's list to identify illegal immigrants. BJP Delhi unit treasurer Arun Jain says: ``We have identified 17 areas which have Bangladeshis, there are not less than 2 lakh of them. Before the last Assembly elections and the 1996 Lok Sabha elections many names were deleted from the voter lists. The EC had instructed the police to identify illegal immigrants. The list that the Central Government now has is based on a 1994 assessment, and with the additions that figure is now 10 lakh''.

Garg is quick to deflect the blame for the influx on ``wrong Congress policies''. He says, ``The Congress and the Congress culture is responsible for this problem (of illegal immigrants) today. All parties should unite and deal with the issue. But when the BJP first raised the issue, everyone opposed it''.

Thakre said yesterday: ``The Congress made such a hue and cry about the move to deport Bangladeshis from Maharashtra. The Maharashtra Government acted against those who could not prove that they are Indian citizens. It was only then that the Government decided to deport them''.