A showdown between the BJP-led government and Trinamool Congress is on the cards over the statement of Union home minister L K Advani in Guwahati on Wednesday that a key Assam law on detecting and deporting illegal migrants would soon be repealed to make the process more stringent.
At the end of a two-day visit to Assam and Meghalaya, Advani said: "For many years we are concerned about illegal immigration and our government is in favour of repealing the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983.We feel that the Foreigners Act, 1946 applicable to the whole of the country, is more effective".
Under the IMDT act, the onus of providing proof that a person is a foreign national is on the complainant while under the Foreigners Act, the onus is on the accused. The IMDT act, in force since 1983, is widely seen as a hurdle to the process of detecting and deporting foreign nationals. Those opposed to making the act stringent say that doing so would lead to harassment of Bengali-speaking people in the state.
Expressing concern at the presence of more than 10 million migrants from Bangladesh in the country, Advani said the problem of infiltration endangered security of the country.
He said to discuss the entire issue of immigration, a meeting of the chief ministers would soon be convened soon in New Delhi.
This is perhaps the first time the government has estimated the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh: 10 million. A similar exercise with chief ministers of affected states had taken place during the ministership of S B Chavan in 1992, but any further action was abandoned due to the controversy over transporting batches of illegal migrants from the Capital, and pushing them into Bangladesh after having their heads shaved.
However, even though Advani has reiterated what he said in written replies during the budget session of parliament on IMDT, the move is sure to be opposed by the Trinamool Congress as well as the Samata Party.
The issue had raised a storm when former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda promised the All Assam Students Union to repeal the act, but had to abandon the move in face of stiff opposition from the supporting Congress. Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Bannerjee was in the Congress then, and was one of the leading opponents of the repeal move.
The ruling Asom Gana Parishad has also become indifferent to the issue. The P K Mahanta government is in power due to the support of the very section of population which its leaders had targetted during the agitation. Repealing the act was one of the major promises made by the BJP in Assam during the Lok Sabha elections; a promise that helped the party win new support among the caste Hindu Assamese, which was clearly reflected in the election results.
Though the BJP did not win a seat in the Brahmaputra valley, its candidates finished either second or third in most constituencies, something considered improbable in a state and region where the BJP had little base until recently.
But things have changed, with the influential section of Assamese society that helped lead and sustain the agitation for six years being deeply disappointed with the AGP and even the Ulfa. This section has now turned to the BJP.
Assam government figures show that a negligible number of foreign nationals have been identified under the IMDT Act since it was enacted. Critics of the act often refer to a statement made by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1990 that the act was basically enacted to prevent harassment to minorities, and not to identify foreign nationals. Currently there are 16 tribunals functioning under the IMDT Act.
To prevent infiltration along the Indo-Bangladesh border, nearly 780 km of fencing of the sanctioned 896 km has been completed.
As stipulated in the 1985 Assam accord. The Centre has also given sanction for the creation of 1280 additional posts of special registration officers under the Prevention of Infiltration Scheme.
