New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday flagged illegal immigration as a major threat to national security, asserting that such people must be identified and sent back to their respective countries.
The prime minister, addressing a gathering at the BJP headquarters after 45-year-old Nitin Nabin was declared elected as the national president of the party, also cited urban Naxals and population imbalance as significant challenges before the nation.
Modi said some wealthy and powerful nations, who consider themselves lords of the world, too, were identifying and deporting illegal immigrants, and nobody was questioning their actions.
“These countries are known to wave the flag of democracy and consider themselves as lords of the world. Nobody, world over, accepts illegal immigrants. It is necessary to identify them and send them back to their countries,” the prime minister said.
“India will never allow illegal immigrants to loot its people and the services that belong to the poor,” Modi said.
The prime minister accused some political parties of shielding illegal immigrants in the interest of votebank politics and giving them cover. “We have to unmask them and expose them in front of the people.
“Another major challenge is that of urban Naxals who are expanding their influence globally,” Modi said.
He claimed that individuals who speak positively about him or the government, even occasionally, are targeted and silenced.
“If they tweet something positive about Modi even once or twice a year, or say something positive on TV, or write something positive in a newspaper, some journalists humiliate them so much that they are hounded and made untouchable… This is the style of urban Naxals,” the prime minister said.
Modi said for years the BJP was isolated and treated as untouchable, but claimed the country is now recognising these tactics.
“Urban Naxals are continuously working to harm India. We have to defeat this nexus through the strength of our organisation and ideology,” the prime minister said.
