Its impossible for Centre to deport Bangladeshis
From Our Spl Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Aug 8 Quite oblivious to the raging controversy over deportation
of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in the North-East, Union Rural Development
Minister, Raghu Prasad Singh today all but gave up his hands, stressing that it
was impossible for the Centre to expel the Bangladeshi nationals from India.
The Ministrys admission came at the end of a press interaction through
tele-conferencing organised by his Ministry with the media in Guwahati. A
question by media in Delhi whether jobs under National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act (NREGA) currently under implementation in seven districts of
Assam, has also gone to illegal Bangladeshi migrants, led the Minister to
respond by saying that his Ministry was helpless in such matters because if a
persons name is enrolled in the Voters List then it was entitled to be
enrolled for jobs.
The Rural Development Ministry has no mechanism to detect such illegal
migrants, who are availing of Central Government funds, he said.
The Minister further asserted that India was a big country and people were free
to come and go. He explained the helplessness of the Centre by stressing that
Bangladesh Government was not willing to accept these illegal migrants as their
citizens. What can we do if Bangladesh is not ready to accept them, he said.
We cant just pick them up and dump them into the river, he argued.
You in the media take over power and we will give you five Bangladeshi for
deportation. My bet is that you cant do it, Singh said.
We have accepted over 1 lakh refugees during the war and fed them regularly,
he said. Dismissing the problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh as BJPs
propaganda, the Minister said it was ploy of the saffron party to mislead the
country. Riots, regionalism, casteism is what the party is known to propagate,
he asserted.
Replying to a question, the Minister did not rule out the possibility of some
of the Rural Development funds falling into the hands of ULFA. That is why the
Ministry has asked the States to be vigilant about fund leakages, he said.
Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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