Guwahati: Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday said BJP’s approach to tackling infiltration in Assam, for the next five years, will rest on three pillars — making infiltrators landless, stateless and jobless.“In the next five years, our approach will be clear — make them landless, stateless and jobless, and prevent them from threatening our identity and culture. At the same time, we reaffirm that Assamese Muslims are integral to our society and are bona fide citizens of India. Our fight is against illegal migrants, not against our own people,” Sonowal said.With infiltration being Assam’s biggest bane, the issue has garnered headlines every time the state has gone to polls since 1983, prompting PM Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma or any other BJP campaigners to highlight it in their respective campaigns.Speaking to TOI, Sonowal said, “Infiltration is a very serious problem. And it is a human problem, isn’t it? Congress gave them settlement in different districts. Now, it is our duty to drive them out.”Referring to the eviction drives across the state, which forced a large number of Bangladesh-origin Muslim migrants out from forest and govt lands, the former CM said, “Making them landless. This is one effective way to drive them out completely.In the last five years, we have already driven them out from more than 1.5 lakh bighas of land, which they were illegally occupying. More will be evicted in the next five years.”Breaking down the party’s approach, Sonowal said, “Secondly, we will have to remove their name from NRC, because it is a constitutional document, and if they are documented illegally in NRC, their names will have to be deleted, rendering them stateless.”He said affidavits have been filed in Supreme Court, seeking stricter monitoring — 20% re-verification of NRC in border districts and 10% in interior districts.Last, but not the least, Sonowal said rendering them unemployed will see the infiltrators leave the shores of Assam. “Make them jobless, because these illegal Muslim migrants are creating problem, and are also a big threat to our identity and culture,” he said.Widely seen as the architect of the state’s legal and political battle against infiltration, Sonowal, long before BJP’s rise in the state, single-handedly challenged the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act (IMDT), forcing the Supreme Court in 2005 to strike down the Act, who observed that it effectively protected illegal migrants rather than identifying and deporting them.The IMDT Act, which was brought in by the Indira Gandhi govt in 1983 at the height of the Assam Movement, had been opposed by large sections of the Assamese society. Its repeal became one of the most decisive moments in the state’s post-movement history, catapulting Sonowal into the national spotlight.Sonowal said Congress ignored the apex court’s judgment after repealing the IMDT Act, and settled migrants across districts, while allowing their names into electoral rolls.“Congress, during its governance, systematically shifted land and resources to illegal migrants. This created problems in many ways. They were settled across different districts of Assam. Their names were illegally inserted into electoral rolls. On the other hand, the indigenous people of Assam felt increasingly disturbed and distressed. Ultimately, they were forced to take the path of agitation, which continued for six years and culminated in the Assam Accord. But while the promises were recorded in the Accord, nothing was ever implemented in action,” Sonowal said.The union minister said Congress kept the Bangladesh border open, providing a filip to the infiltrators.“We have sealed the border by developing some modern scientific device and have ultimately made the entire border so tight that no infiltrator can enter Assam,” Sonowal said.“We began issuing pattas to indigenous Assamese people and in our first term, we were able to hand over more than 3.5 lakh land pattas to indigenous families. This continued under the Basundhara initiative, and across both terms — 2016 to 2021 and 2021 to 2026 — we distributed a total of eight lakh pattas,” Sonowal said.Sonowal said that alongside these measures, the govt had granted classical language status to Assamese, promoting indigenous dances like Bagrumba, Bihu and Jhumur, and securing Unesco recognition for the Moidams in Sivasagar.
