Termite Remark: Bangladesh Minister Hits Back, Says We Don't Give Importance To Amit Shah

BJP President Amit Shah's "termite" remark for Bangladeshi migrants has drawn sharp criticsim from Bangladeshi minister who termed Shah's comments as "unwarranted" and said that the BJP president is not qualified to speak on the matter, according to a report on The Hindu.

“Amit Shah has made an unwanted remark by describing Bangladeshis as termites. We in Dhaka do not give any importance to his statement as it does not carry the gravity of an official statement of India. We have maintained that the NRC process in Assam and the welfare of the Bengali-speaking citizens of India are internal issues of India,” Minister of Information Hasanul Haq Inu said.

The minister further explained that India's official position on the NRC (National Register of Citizens)  process in Assam has been conveyed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who had assured Dhaka that people excluded in Assam’s NRC exercise would not be sent to Bangladesh

“Minister of Home Affairs of India Rajnath Singh as well as Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla, based in Dhaka, have assured us that the NRC process of Assam is an internal issue of India and that not a single Bengali-speaking person will be sent to Bangladesh,” said Inu according to the report.

The minister further said that he hoped Shah knows that "no Bangladeshis are staying in India, according to a report on NDTV

"There is an information gap. I hope he knows no Bangladeshis are staying in India. All Bangla-speaking people living in India are not Bangladeshis. We do not give any importance to his statement as it is not an official Indian government version," said Inu according to the NDTV report.

Inu also said thayt the Assam NRC exercise is an "internal matter" of India about which Bangladesh is not concerned.

"At the moment we are not concerned about any situation within the states of Assam, West Bengal or any other states of India. It is an internal matter, PM Modi is handling it very nicely," said Inu according to the report.

Amit Shah had on Saturday said Bangladeshi migrants are like “termites” and each one of them will be sent out of the country.

Referring to the draft National Register of Citizens recently published in Assam, he had said, “The BJP government brought NRC and prima facie identified nearly 40 lakh illegal immigrants.”

The BJP government will pick out each and every “infiltrator”, he added, at a public meetings in Rajasthan.

“BJP sarkaar ek-ek ghuspaithiye ko chun-chun kar matdata suchi se hatane ka kaam karegi,” he said in Swai Madhopur district's Gangapur, calling illegal migrants “termites” and warning that their names will be deleted from the voters’ list.

 At another meeting in Kota, he said the Congress treated “infiltrators” as a vote bank while the BJP is committed to identifying each one of them and sending them out of the country.

 The Bharatiya Janata Party chief was in Rajasthan earlier this month as well, as his party and the Congress gear up for the state polls by the year-end.

(with PTI inputs)