If one is in Assam, can the foreign national question be far behind? Even a drive to evict encroachers from reserved forest land, initiated by the state government, is haunted by the spectre of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. So much so that the drive has been slowed down.
The Opposition—the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the CPI(M)—don’t disagree with the idea per se. But in a memorandum submitted to the prime minister, the AGP alleged: “The Congress is silent on evicting the suspected Bangladeshi nationals from the Kaziranga National Park, but it has started evicting the “local” people from the reserved forest lands.”