Guwahati: BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Friday
said that many political parties are not taking the problem of
infiltration seriously because of 'vote bank politics'.
"There is no consensus on the issue among the
political parties as they are not serious and some are
treating infiltrators as their vote bank," Swaraj told a
conclave on influx of Bangladeshis organised by the North East
Policy Institute here.
She regretted that several important clauses of the
historic Assam Accord, signed 25 years ago, have not been
implemented.
"All political parties need to go in for self-
introspection and analyse why the accord has not been
implemented", she said.
Describing the agitation spearheaded by the All Assam
Students Union (AASU) in the 1980s against infiltration as the
biggest struggle after Independence, Swaraj called for a new
"workline" to ensure that the accord was implemented.
"A new workline has to be thrashed out which should be
legally tenable, socially acceptable and politically useful,"
the BJP leader said.
"There has been severe set back in deportation of
infiltrators as a result of which the demographic pattern of
Assam is threatened," she said.
Swaraj called for completing the fencing work along
the Indo-Bangla border which was the only solution in stopping
influx of foreigners.
PTI
First Published: Friday, August 13, 2010, 21:29