Contai (West Bengal): Coming down heavily on the Mamata Banerjee government on the refugee crisis, BJP President Amit Shah on Tuesday said if elected to power, the BJP will ensure citizenship to all refugees and drive away all the infiltrators from Bengal.
"The infiltrators, the Rohingiyas are welcomed in Bengal, but the refugees who come to protect themselves and their families do not have place here. I want to assure all the refugees staying in Bengal that they will be given citizenship by the Modi government," Shah said at a public rally in East Midnapore district's Contai.
"The refugees including Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, who came to Bengal should be given Indian citizenship. Modi ji wants to give them citizenship through the Citizenship Amendment Bill, Mamata and her party should reveal whether they would support the Bill in the Rajya Sabha," he said.
Shah said that neither the current Trinamool Congress regime nor the communists and Congress would address the infiltration issue in Bengal as they consider the infiltrators as vote bank.
"If you want to make Bengal free from infiltrators, Mamata, Communists or Congress cannot help you. They need the votes of the infiltrators. If anyone can do it, it is Narendra Modi and BJP," the saffron party chief said.
"Should cow smuggling be stopped or allowed? Can Trinamool Congress stop cow smuggling or infiltration? They cannot, because infiltrators are their vote banks. Elect BJP to power once. We will make sure every single infiltrator is thrown out," he said amid massive cheers from the crowd.
Shah said while the 2019 Lok Sabha polls might be a battle to re-elect Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister in rest of the country, in Bengal it is a challenge to rebuild the lost 'golden Bengal' (a term coined by Rabindranath Tagore).
"Bengal used to lead the nation culturally, politically, socially. But what has happened to Bengal? Where did Tagor's 'Sonar Bangla' go?"
"The 2019 election in Bengal is not to elect or remove a political party from power or to make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister again. It can be so for the rest of the country, but here it is an election to rebuild the 'golden Bengal'," he said.
He said once BJP comes to power in Bengal, it will hunt down all the fraudsters who defrauded nearly 25 lakh people in the state through various chit fund schemes.