The reported deportation of nearly 5,000 undocumented Bangladeshi nationals from India's West Bengal state has become the first major test of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) promise to "detect, delete and deport" after its landslide election victory in the state last month.

Just weeks after the vote, authorities ordered districts to set up holding centers for undocumented Bangladeshis and ethnic minority Rohingyas awaiting verification and deportation. According to West Bengal's chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, around 4,800 people have already been sent across the border, while another 836 remain in custody.

Illegal immigration from neighboring Bangladesh has long been one of eastern India's most potent mobilizing political issues for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP. BJP leaders argue that decades of unchecked migration have altered demographics, distorted electoral rolls, strained welfare resources and created security concerns.

India's Home Minister Amit Shah stated that the government would not only stop infiltration but find each infiltrator and send them out of the country. Shah added that the government would make the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders "impenetrable" to defeat what he called a "conspiracy to change the demography of the country."

Neighboring Bangladesh has objected to what it describes as attempts to push people across the border without completing the verification process. Last month, Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry wrote to the Indian government calling these push-ins "unacceptable" and stating it would "only accept individuals confirmed as Bangladeshi citizens and repatriated through proper channels."

Rights groups and Bangladeshi officials argue that pushbacks bypass some of those safeguards, removing people before their nationality has been conclusively established. "This is another avoidable bilateral irritant," said Sreeradha Datta, a Bangladesh expert at the Jindal School of International Affairs.

The most contentious question, however, is whether all those being deported are actually Bangladeshi nationals. Human rights groups have repeatedly warned that previous drives against alleged undocumented migrants in eastern India have swept up Indian citizens, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Source: www.dw.com