Guwahati: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday accused the opposition of turning infiltrators into vote banks and said infiltrators will be removed from the electoral rolls and deported within five years if the BJP returns to power in Assam in the upcoming assembly elections.He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the “courage, determination and sheer resolve to rid the country of infiltrators”.“The support of the state government is crucial to weeding out infiltrators, which will never be possible if the opposition comes to power,” he said.He further said that the Election Commission was conducting summary revision (SIR) to help identify infiltrators but “opposition leaders have launched agitations for this.” “The country will definitely be free of infiltrators. Under our government, the country is becoming free of Naxalism and similarly, Assam and the entire country will be free of infiltrators,” Shah said.Shah was speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the headquarters of the 10th Battalion of the Assam Police at Kachutoli near the city on land that was freed from encroachers in 2024.“During the Opposition government’s rule, infiltrators encroached on 174 Bihas lands which have now been liberated by Assam’s current Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and where today’s event is being held,” he said.“Where there were security challenges, the 10th Battalion of Assam Police is now being set up which will eliminate these challenges,” he said.He added that the land occupied by the infiltrators poses a major threat to Guwahati, Assam and the entire country and “the presence of these infiltrators poses a serious challenge to the development of Assam”.“During the tenure of the previous government, infiltrators had entered the region and pushed Assam’s demographic situation to dangerous levels,” Shah said.The opposition parties are directly responsible for several districts in Assam – such as Dhubri, Barpeta, Morigaon, Darang, Pangaigaon and Nagao – becoming infiltrator-dominated areas. “He stressed that Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had liberated nearly 1.45 lakh Bihas land from infiltrators and provided government jobs to over 1.40 lakh people of Assam without corruption and issued a firm commitment that “if our government is formed again in the next five years, we will identify and deport every infiltrator from the country.”Shah claimed that infiltrators had become a vote bank for the opposition and declared: “Once our party’s government is formed, in the next five years we will not only purge the infiltrators from the electoral roll but also from the country.”Accusing the opposition of endangering Assam’s identity, Shah said: “The opposition has compromised the identity of the Assamese community and put its cultural heritage at risk by allowing infiltrators in and handing over the fertile lands of Assam to them.”
