Referring to the NRC (National Register of Citizens) in Assam Amit Shah on 22nd September claimed that all Bangladeshi migrants will be struck off the electoral list and claiming them as ‘termites’ and that the Indian government will undertake every possible initiative to deport them. The NRC till now has been able to identify 40 lakh illegal migrants residing in the region.
Shah was speaking at a public meeting in Sawai Madhopur district’s Gangapur before heading for another event in Kota to campaign for the upcoming state polls. The BJP chief was in Rajasthan earlier this month campaigning extensively for the Assembly elections which are to take place at the end of this year. Taking a jab at the opposition, he claimed that the Congress treated infiltrators as merely their ‘vote banks’ while the BJP is ‘committed to identifying’ each one of them and sending them out of the country.
“The BJP government will pick out each and every infiltrator and remove the name from the voters’ list,” said Shah during the address.
Shah’s remarks came two days after the Supreme Court ordered that the process of receiving claims and objections from people whose names were not included in the final draft of the NRC which will, in turn, start from September 25.
Targeting the “lack of clarity” over leadership in the Congress, Shah asked if former chief minister Ashok Gehlot or Sachin Pilot would be the party’s chief ministerial face in Rajasthan. Claiming, that in its ‘four-and-a-half-year tenure’, the Modi government had done more development work than what the Congress had done in ‘four-and-a-half generations’.
Reacting to Amit Shah’s statement, Sachin Pilot countered by stating, “As far as daydreaming is concerned, BJP has mastered itself in this art and Amit Shah’s statement is based on arrogance on which he operates”. Pilot also added that the Congress is ‘well placed’ in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, all three states which will have polls later in the year.