Kolkata: Union home minister Amit Shah's arrival in the city on Friday night coincided with Bengal BJP releasing a documentary on "infiltration" and "demographic change" in Bengal. He is scheduled to address two consecutive rallies on Saturday, one in Barrackpore and the other in Siliguri.
Shah, during his visit last month, had harped on the infiltration issue at length.
The docu film, titled ‘The Silent Invasion', highlights a surge in national security threat from a "ticking time bomb called infiltration". It chronicles a "deep-rooted conspiracy to re-engineer demography" in the state. "During his addresses on Saturday, Shah is likely to touch upon the planned effort for demographic re-engineering in Bengal," said a Bengal BJP neta.
Shah reached Kolkata around 9.30pm and went to a hotel in New Town, where he held a meeting with Bengal BJP functionaries. He is scheduled to reach Anandapuri Khelar Math at Barrackpore on Saturday morning to address a workers' rally. He is set to leave for Bagdogra and attend an organisational meeting at Gosainpara in the afternoon.
The narrative over a "changing demography in Bengal" started last Sept when the BJP brass asked state netas to prepare for the "Demography Mission". As the Centre tried to "tackle a premeditated conspiracy" to change the demography in bordering areas, state BJP netas continued to harp on it.
While the tone had been set by PM Narendra Modi and Shah during their campaign rallies in Bengal, BJP's newly elected national president Nitin Nabin fine-tuned the narrative during his visit to Bengal this week.
Bengal BJP launched the first part of the documentary, which includes the arrests of illegal operatives linked to outfits like al Qaida and JMB across India, including Operation Praghat in Assam. Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said: "They (Trinamool) are trying to change the character of the country by bringing changes in demography. West Bengal is being used as a passage towards that end."