Amit Shah steps up efforts to keep infiltrator issue at the forefront

New Delhi: Home minister from states as far away as Bihar and Uttarakhand Amit Shah The BJP is leading the push to bring the issue of infiltrators to the forefront, not just with an eye on the upcoming assembly elections, especially in West Bengal and Assam, where it has some resonance, but also with an eye on setting the national agenda by incorporating the party’s core platform as its central theme.Shah has long supported national security and demographic concerns over an influx of so-called Bangladeshi infiltrators, and he recently stepped up his efforts by camping out in Bihar’s Seemanchal district on the border with the eastern neighbor for three days before sending out a stern message from Uttarakhand last week.He chose to launch several development schemes in Haridwar to underline the Modi government’s resolve on the issue. “From Kedarnath to Konyakumari, wherever infiltrators are present across the country, we will identify and eliminate every infiltrator in India,” he said, accusing the opposition parties of trying to protect them as they consider them their vote bank.The BJP has strongly backed the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, which has the potential to identify and remove illegal voters, a large portion of whom may be illegal voters, a move that in turn has been protested by the opposition for its alleged intention to benefit the ruling party.More than any other state, SIR has become a political flashpoint between the Mamata Banerjee government and the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal, leading to frequent interventions by the Supreme Court.The BJP has backed its claim of a large number of infiltrators citing an “unnatural” surge in Muslim voters in different parts of the state bordering Bangladesh. While the SC approved the SIR while giving some directions, the TMC nuanced its objections but raised questions about the process and accused the EC of collaborating with the BJP to target voters who were not sympathetic to the national party.In his speech in Haridwar, the Home Minister said that more than 10,000 encroached structures, often allegedly linked to infiltrators, have been demolished in the hilly district under the BJP government’s crackdown. On the other hand, he claimed in a message that the opposition was protecting them, which was as important to people in the state as it was to people outside the state.