Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, has labeled Narendra Modi and Amit Shah as illegal immigrants. Calling them migrants, he added, “We will get to know whether illegal or legal afterwards.” Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was speaking in the context of the NRC.
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The senior Congress leader from West Bengal said, “Hindustan is for everyone, for Hindus and Muslims.. I can say that Amit Shah ji, Narendra Modi ji, you are yourself illegal immigrants. Your home is Gujarat, you came over to Delhi. You are yourselves migrants.” It appears that Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is either not aware of the difference between illegal immigrants from other countries and Indian citizens or he is deliberately trying to mislead the public.
Considering the fact that he is an elected representative to the Indian Parliament, the former seems hardly plausible. However, one also has to keep in mind that Rahul Gandhi has impacted the culture of the Congress party in a significant manner over the years. In recent times, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has made a habit of making foot-in-the-mouth comments.
Folllwing the abrogation of Article 370, he kicked up a storm by questioning the government whether Article 370 and the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter. He questioned how can matters related to Jammu and Kashmir be ‘internal’ if it is being monitored by the UN since 1948. Earlier in June, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had likened Prime Minister Modi to a ‘gandi naali’.
More recently, in November, Chowdhury had used derogatory remarks against the European Parliament members who had recently visited Jammu and Kashmir to review the situation. He had said that the European delegation that visited Kashmir were all “kiraye ke tattu (hired hacks)”.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is not the first person to label Indians as immigrants while criticising the NRC. AAP leaders including Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal have made similar comments, saying BJP leaders living in Delhi will have to leave Delhi if NRC is implemented, ignoring the fact that NRC only identifis Indians and non-Indians, it does not prevent Indians in one state to live in another state.