NEW DELHI: A blame game has begun between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over the settlement of illegal Rohingyas in Delhi, with Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri accusing the AAP of “hosting illegal” Rohingya refugees in “large numbers”.
The minister’s claim was rebuffed by CM Aitishi who accused the central government, of which Puri is part, of allowing Rohingyas, who are Muslim minority group from Myanmar, to enter into the Indian territory.
A week ago, the AAP had accused the BJP of settling Rohingya refugees in the national capital while pretending to oppose them.
Senior AAP functionaries, including CM Atishi, MP Sanjay Singh, and former deputy CM Manish Sisodia, cited a 2022 post on X by Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri as evidence of BJP’s involvement in housing Rohingyas in EWS flats in Delhi’s Bakkarwala.
Highlighting the central government’s 2022 clarification that no directions were issued by it to provide flats to illegal Rohingya immigrants in New Delhi, Puri on Sunday lashed out at the AAP for restoring to politics of “diversion, false narratives and half truths”.
“Aam Aadmi Party continues with its politics of diversion, false narratives and half truths. Facts and actual position on illegal Rohingya migrants were immediately clarified through a tweet on the same day which they selectively chose to ignore, and continue to do so,” Puri said.
He further added: “No Rohingya migrant has been given a govt house in Delhi. In fact, contrary to the drummed up AAP rhetoric they are actually the ones who play host to the illegal Rohingyas in Delhi, have settled them in large numbers, give them electricity and water, and even pay them Rs 10,000.”
Responding to the Union minister’s claim, Delhi CM Atishi said either Puri was lying then or “is lying now”. Atishi said it was the central government that allowed Rohingyas “to enter India illegally”.
“He was either lying earlier, or he is lying now… The Rohingyas settled in different parts of Delhi, all because of the central government. They allowed them to enter India illegally, they crossed six states and came to Delhi. When they reached Delhi, the central government provided them with houses and officially helped them settle here,” CM Atishi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Earlier, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva had said that Kejriwal and his associates, who claimed to be educated, were misleading people by citing an old post from 2022 by Union minister Puri. The post mentioned the settlement of legal refugees, not illegal infiltrators, he said.
He said that ever since his party launched a campaign to disenfranchise illegally-residing Rohingyas and Bangladeshis and expel them from the country, Kejriwal and other AAP functionaries were resorting to baseless rhetoric to divert the attention of people from the core issues affecting Delhi.