NEW DELHI: In a strong plea to his party’s Hindu base, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political partner has promised to purge the capital of “illegal” immigrants should his party win the upcoming elections.
Amit Shah, the interior minister, declared that if his party won the provincial elections next month, all illegal migrants from Bangladesh would be forced to leave New Delhi “within two years.”
At the demonstration on Sunday, Shah addressed a crowd of several thousand people, saying, “The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas.” “We will purge Delhi of all criminals if we change the government.”
India and Muslim-majority Bangladesh share a porous border that stretches thousands of kilometers, and illegal migration from India’s eastern neighbor has long been a contentious political issue.
The number of Bangladeshis residing in Delhi illegally is unknown, despite the fact that millions of people from other parts of India have moved there in recent decades in pursuit of work.
In order to rally its Hindu-nationalist support base before elections, Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is accused by its detractors of exploiting the topic as a dog whistle against Muslims.
