Guwahati, March 3: The Bharatiya Janata Party will implement Assam’s “detect, delete and deport” framework to identify and expel alleged Bangladeshi infiltrators in West Bengal if voted to power, party national president Nitin Nabin said on March 2.
Addressing a rally in Islampur in Malda district while flagging off the party’s ‘Parivartan Yatra’ ahead of the Assembly elections, Nabin stated that the model currently in force in Assam would be replicated in Bengal. He said the BJP had recently formed the government in Bihar and added that in Assam the party was following the “detect, delete and deport” model for Bangladeshi infiltrators, which would be implemented wherever foreigners were allegedly eating into the rights of citizens.
The formulation refers to identifying suspected illegal immigrants, deleting their names from electoral rolls and initiating legal deportation proceedings. Nabin also cited recent deletions in the state’s electoral rolls, claiming that the Election Commission had removed the names of more than 50 lakh alleged Bangladeshi infiltrators. He asserted that had these names not been removed, central welfare schemes meant for the people of Bengal would have benefited infiltrators.
In a significant political announcement, Nabin said that if the BJP forms the government in the state, Islampur would be renamed “Ishwarpur.” Throughout his address, he referred to the gathering as residents of “Ishwarpur.”
Linking the proposed renaming to the region’s historical legacy, he mentioned Rajbanshi reformer Thakur Panchanan Barma, the last Hindu ruler of Bengal Lakshman Sen, and revolutionary freedom fighter Purna Chandra Das as figures associated with the area’s heritage.
The remarks marked a sharp escalation in the BJP’s campaign narrative in Bengal, placing illegal immigration and identity politics at the forefront of its electoral strategy.
