The leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, has made a fresh push for the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal, claiming it is necessary to identify infiltrators allegedly threatening the safety of society.

“West Bengal is a hub of such illegal immigrants, who have managed to mix with the general population with the help of a certain section of the society, emboldened by the reluctance of the Police in taking any action against them. The ruling party of the State perceive them as electoral assets which help them gain legal impunity,” Adhikari wrote on X on Monday night.

“It's high time to implement NRC in WB to weed out these infiltrators who are sharing our resources like parasites and also threatening the security and safety of Indian Citizens,” he added.

Adhikari provided details of several individuals he claimed were Bangladeshis living in India and engaging in various criminal activities. The Nandigram MLA urged the Union home ministry to initiate a thorough investigation by the NIA or any other agency into such activities.

The NRC, whose creation is mandated by the 2003 amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955, has the names of all Indian citizens. Its purpose is to document all legal citizens of India so that illegal immigrants can be identified and deported.

After the Assam government updated the NRC on August 31, 2019, on the order of the Supreme Court, it emerged that the list did not include over 19 lakh citizens. These "stateless citizens" included seven lakh Muslims, five lakh Bengali Hindus, two lakh Assamese Hindus and 1.5 lakh Gorkhas.

This prompted a huge backlash, prompting Union home minister Amit Shah to state: “There is no NRC now; talk only about the CAA.”

Commenting on Adhikari's renewed plea for the NRC, a senior BJP leader said: “This is just a process to polarise the votes before the Assembly polls. In the present situation where the BJP doesn't have a clear majority in the Assembly, the implementation of the NRC is not possible. In this situation, Suvendu-da is stoking this NRC issue only to get some advantage in electoral politics.”

Senior Trinamool Congress leader Arup Chakraborty said Mamata Banerjee had already asserted that there would be no NRC in Bengal as long as she was the chief minister. "In this context, I would like to ask one question to Suvendu Adhikari. From where will the NRC start? From the house of former Union minister Nisith Adhikari or former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb — they all have their roots in Bangladesh,” added Chakraborty.

Senior CPM leader Sujan Chakraborty said the BJP and the TMC always raised the bogey of the NRC whenever elections were approaching.