Starting afresh the debate of ‘illegal infiltrators’ and ‘refugees’ from Bangladesh which the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) tried to put forth during the campaign of 2014 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, BJP leader Siddhartha Nath Singh on Thursday asked what is West Bengal government doing to provide jobs to Bangladeshi refugees?
Stating that the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has taken an initiative of ‘settling and giving jobs to 5,464 Bangladeshi refugees’ in M.P., Mr. Singh said, “What is West Bengal government doing?”
“We are noticing that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee welcomes illegal infiltrators, but has no sympathy for refugees from Bangladesh,” the BJP national executive committee and co-in charge of the State said.
Mr. Singh claimed that it was promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his election rallies that the ‘refugees from Bangladesh coming to India should be welcomed and the economic burden should be shared by all Indian States’. During the elections, Mr. Modi said that illegal infiltrators from the State would be driven out while refugees would be rehabilitated by the Centre. Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee had condemned the remarks then. The Trinamool Congress had described the distinction between ‘illegal infiltrators’ and ‘refugees’ as an attempt to create a divide in society.
