Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has moved its ground to Bengal to call for the implementation of a similar citizens’ list in the state, taking cues from Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC). Targeting the districts that border Bangladesh in Bengal, the RSS is focused on a door-to-door campaign to inform people about the ‘perils’ of ‘non-stop infiltration’ of Muslims from Bangladesh into their state.
Bengal secretary for the RSS, Jishnu Basu, in an interview to Economic Times, said, “We will take all efforts to convince people and implement the NRC in Bengal. Without NRC, there is no way to save his state from Bangladeshi Muslims,”
The Sangh has formed a committee comprising senior advocates who are committed to filing petitions before the Calcutta High Court, and move the Supreme Court if need be. They are trying to seek legal directions to implement NRC.
Basu said the NRC is the only way to save Bengal from ‘Jihadis’ of Bangladesh. The Sangh Parivar is also training villagers to organise the required documents to clear the NRC process and prove their citizenship.
The RSS claims to have all the documents necessary to prove the demography in Bengal. Basu also said that the Indian government will pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 within next year to ensure that minority refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh can be provided with Indian citizenship.
BJP national general secretary, Kailash Vijayvargiya, said, “In small groups, we are also going to the people. We have discussed this in our district-level and village-level mandals. We are working on the citizenship bill that is pending with Parliament and trying hard to get it passed soon.”
He went on to claim that the issue is proving to be a national security threat. He added that around two crore people ‘appear’ to be illegal immigrants.