New Delhi [India], March 19 : BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday accused Congress of giving a "free hand" for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh to enter India, alleging "vote bank" politics.
Speaking to ANI, Dubey cited the 1972 India-Bangladesh Trade Agreement and accused Congress of allowing Bangladeshi "infiltrators" into the country. He called the trade agreement a "compromise."
He said, "The biggest problem right now, the problem due to which we, the people of Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Assam, Tripura and even the people of Mumbai, Delhi, and Gujarat are troubled, is the Bangladeshi infiltrators. Approximately, around 5-8 crore, maybe even 10 crore people came from Bangladesh. Our tribal population, which used to be 45 per cent according to the census of 1951, today in Santhal Pargana it is 24 per cent, and the Muslim population, which was 9 per cent, is 25-26 per cent."
"On 19 March 1972, Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had a secret agreement in which the Congress gave a free hand to the Bangladeshi infiltrators and the citizens of Bangladesh to come here, and the Congress felt that if the Muslims came here, then it would be their vote bank. And when I posted that, many people reacted to it, saying that it is wrong. So today I made another tweet," Dubey added.
He further stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have taken an oath to remove illegal immigrants from the country.
"Today, the entire country is facing Bangladeshi infiltrators, for which the Prime Minister and the Home Minister have taken an oath that they will remove the Bangladeshi infiltrators under any circumstances. The reason behind this was the vote bank politics of the Congress and the compromise it made in 1972. cannot be worse, unimaginable, unbelievable and any compromise that betrays the country," Dubey told ANI.
According to the External Affairs Ministry, the bilateral trade agreement, allowed "the people living within a sixteen kilometre belt of border between West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram on the one hand and Bangladesh on the other, and with a view to providing facilities to these people to dispose of their goods, border trade shall be allowed in specified commodities in accordance with Schedule 'B' attached to this Agreement."
Schedule B of the agreement allowed a person holding such a special permit to carry permitted goods and commodities across the border.
In an X post, Dubey wrote, "For some so-called wise people, how Congress sneaked Bangladeshi infiltrators into India. As a result of the agreement between Indira Gandhi ji and Sheikh Mujibur, it was decided that free movement for trade up to 16 kilometres would be allowed in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. This is the time of the national movement against Congress. Why are we distressed today?"
Further, speaking to ANI, Nishikant Dubey slammed Congress and Trinamool Congress for opposing the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in West Bengal. He also slammed the Opposition parties for bringing in an impeachment motion against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar.
He said, "Congress has destroyed constitutional institutions. You must remember that MS Gill stepped down from the Election Commission. He solved Sonia Gandhi's citizenship issue. And the Election Commissioner became a Congress minister. TN Seshan, who became such a big name, contested the elections from Gandhinagar as a Congress candidate against the BJP. There are hundreds of such examples. But we never said anything against the Election Commissioner. We never brought an impeachment motion against him. About SIR, Rajiv Gandhi said that the Election Commission should do this work. We never raised any questions. We contested elections. SIR is not a new thing. I think Congress and Mamata oppose it only to make Bangladeshi voters citizens and to strengthen their vote bank.
"Let SIR happen. In Bihar, to date, no one has said that I had voted at two places, and the duplicate voters were not removed. I am saying that my father was also removed there. So I think it changes the goalposts. The entire agenda of Soros is to break this country into pieces, to tear this country apart, to attack all the constitutional institutions of this country. There is no such constitutional institution on which Rahul Gandhi does not raise questions. And behind Rahul Gandhi raising the question, there is Soros' agenda, who wants to break India into pieces," he added.
On March 13, Trinamool Congress MPs submitted notices in both Houses of Parliament seeking the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
This comes as West Bengal will hold assembly elections, with polling for two phases scheduled for April 23 and April 29. Counting of votes for both phases will be conducted on May 4. The election process is scheduled to be completed by May 6.