Modi accuses opposition of encouraging 'infiltrators' into Northeast India

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (20 December) warned against attempts to erase the identity of the people in the North East by encouraging cross-border infiltration into the region.

Addressing an event after inaugurating the new terminal building at the Guwahati airport, Modi accused the opposition INDIA alliance of having "openly adopted anti-national agendas even as the Supreme Court has spoken about removing infiltrators."

He said the opposition parties are issuing statements in defence of infiltrators and their lawyers are pleading in court to settle them.

Modi's raking up the cross-border infiltration issue came in the backdrop of some influential voices in Bangladesh recently talking about isolating India's North Eastern states from the rest of the country.

Assam is set to witness fresh assembly elections in March-April next year when the BJP will seek to retain power in the crucial north eastern state that shares a border with Bangladesh, after having governed it for the last 11 years at a stretch.    

Modi remarked that when India's Election Commission is conducting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process to ensure fair elections, "these groups are opposing it. Such people will not protect the interests of Assamese brothers and sisters, and will allow others to occupy their land and forests."

He warned that "their anti-national mindset could recreate the violence and unrest of earlier times."

The Indian prime minister said "success in the development of Assam and the Northeast is being achieved because the government is safeguarding the identity and culture of the region and accused the opposition of "conspiring to erase this identity."

This conspiracy, he said, "was not limited to just a few years and recalled that "the roots of this wrongdoing go back to the pre-independence era when the Muslim League and the British government were preparing the ground for India's partition."

"At that time, there was also a plan to make Assam a part of undivided Bengal, that is, East Pakistan."

Modi claimed the Congress party was "going to be part of this conspiracy but Gopinath Bardoloi, after whom the Guwahati airport is named,  "stood against his own party, opposed this plot to destroy Assam's identity and saved Assam from being separated from the country."

Modi said that while Bardoloi "had saved Assam before independence, the first ruling dispensation in the post-independence era once again began anti-Assam and anti-national activities thereafter and conspired to expand their vote bank through religious appeasement, giving free rein to infiltrators in Bengal and Assam."

He said the region's demography was altered, and these infiltrators encroached upon forests and lands, and as a result, the security and identity of the entire state of Assam were put at risk.

Modi said the BJP government in Assam is working diligently to free Assam's resources from illegal and anti-national encroachments, and the Indian government has also taken strict measures to stop infiltration, with identification processes underway to remove illegal infiltrators.

"The Opposition and their alliance have openly adopted anti-national agendas, even as the Supreme Court has spoken about removing infiltrators. He noted that these parties are issuing statements in defence of infiltrators and their lawyers are pleading in court to settle them," Modi said.