by Brig Arun Bajpai

On this Wednesday, Indian Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat while speaking on North East in a Delhi seminar with focus on development said that Ajmal Badruddin's party AIUDF which is basically a party of Bangladeshi Muslims residing in India, has grown in Assam and West Bengal much faster than BJP or any other party. This is a fact of life which everybody knows but nobody wants to speak due to political reasons. The fact that this party has three MPs and 13 MLAs in such a short time of its creation is case in point. Currently Ajmal Badruddin is creating lot of noise on this statement and AIUDF is all balloons and blunderbuss. Why?

In the seminar on North East in Delhi while delivering his talk, Army Chief has said that Pakistan with tacit help from China is flooding Assam, Bengal and other states of North East from illegal migrants of Bangladesh. This is a serious security threat which needs to be addressed, so what is wrong with this statement? He of course did not name China or Pakistan just said our Eastern and Western neighbours. Is it not common knowledge that how certain North Eastern State top politicians have been encouraging influx of Bangladeshis, even providing them Aadhar and ration cards to get their votes ? In Assam alone nine districts now are with Muslim Majority? How this happened? In normal estimates there are about two corer illegal Bangladeshis who are spread all over India and working. These people do jobs at much cheaper rates then the Indians so people employ them. The question is that in this era of job shortage with 80 corer Indian youth below 35 years of age needing jobs, can we allow these Bangladeshis to take our land and jobs and be security risk to the country?

Ajmal Badrauddin says that his AIUDF party was the first to say that why BSF guarding the Bangladeshi border does not shoot these people crossing over? This is a good question for which BSF must be made accountable by Shri Rajnath Singh our Home Minister. Recently a commandant level officer of BSF guarding Bangladesh Border was caught with 47 lakh cash .What was he doing with so much of cash on the border? How come this news suddenly got hushed up? All political parties also developed amnesia. Questions are bound to be asked is BSF playing the game of cash for entry.

Gen Bipin Rawat is very right in saying that if this influx is allowed to go unchecked then it is serious threat to countries security. He is responsible of external threat to the country and if he keeps quiet just because some politicians will not like it, then it will be dereliction of his duties. In a democracy people of India have a right to know where the security of the country stands. This cannot be left to netas or government in power. This is common practice in other developed democracies so why not now in Indian democracy now 70 years old. Actually time has come for people of India to demand from the elected government in power the state of national security and level of preparedness of Armed Forces.

Brig Arun Bajpai (Retd) is a distinguished Defence and Strategic Analyst. Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDN. IDN does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same