Will throw out each infiltrator one by one, says Amit Shah

BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday declared that the party will “throw out all infiltrators one by one” by enforcing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) while simultaneously clarifying that no Hindu, Sikh, Jain or Buddhist need to worry because they will be accorded Indian citizenship beforehand with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

Addressing a BJP meeting on NRC in Kolkata, Shah, who is also the Union Home Minister, made a distinction between Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists whom he classified as “refugees” while presumably consigning Muslims to the “infiltrator” status and threatening them with eviction.

“Mamata Didi (West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee) says she will not allow the NRC. I am saying that we will not allow a single infiltrator to live in India. No refugee will be asked to leave and no infiltrator will be allowed to stay,” said Shah while citing the abrogation of Article 370 by way of proof that the BJP does what it says.

Don’t create rifts: Mamata

In response, the West Bengal CM requested Shah not to “create rifts among people”. “Please don’t create rift among people. Bengal is known to respect leaders of different faiths for ages. No one can spoil that,” Banerjee said at a local function in Kolkata.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) sought to project the NRC exercise in Assam as an “anti-Bengali” move after many Bengali-speaking people were left out of the final list of citizens published on August 31. In the final list, 1.9 million people have been excluded and at least 1 million are believed to be Hindus, a factor that the BJP has sought to play down in its effort to portray the NRC as an exercise to pluck out Muslim migrants from Bangladesh. Reiterating this line, the BJP President said the TMC is trying to mislead people on the issue.

“People of Bengal are being misled on the issue of NRC. Mamata Didi is saying that millions of Hindus will have to leave West Bengal. There cannot be a bigger lie than this. I want to assure the people of Bengal NRC will be implemented but nothing of this sort is going to happen,” he said.

“I assure all Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain refugees they won’t have to leave the country, they will get Indian citizenship and enjoy all the rights of an Indian national,” said Shah, letting it be known that those expelled would be Muslims.

Alarmed at the possibility of the NRC being replicated in West Bengal, people have been rushing to government and municipal offices in droves to obtain documents that could prove West Bengal has been their place of residence for long.

Banerjee has claimed 11 people have committed suicide out of fear of being rendered Stateless in the event of the citizenship register being prepared in the State, and declared she will never allow the exercise to be undertaken in West Bengal.

Shah underlined in his Kolkata speech that the BJP is determined to implement NRC in West Bengal.

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