Rush of 'ghost' voters in Assam polls

Indo-Bangladesh border: BSF men chasing Bangladeshi infiltrators as they try to cross the riverine border over to the Indian side is a common sight in the Dhubri sector of the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Keeping a check on these infiltrators along these land and riverine borders that Assam shares with Bangladesh is a difficult task as the border runs into hundreds of kilometres.

In fact, strolling across the border is almost a cakewalk here. One can easily go across the red line and interact with the people of the other country.

Most illegal Bangladeshi migrants, in fact, cross over to this side unnoticed. The unlucky ones get caught by the Border Security Force.

"They got us here to vote. But the police arrested us because we were Bangladeshis," said Rabiul Hasan, an infiltrator who was arrested on the border on the eve of the polls.

Even as 61 out of 126 constituencies in Assam go into the polls in the second and last phase of Assembly elections on Monday, the focus is on parts of Lower Assam and areas along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Infiltration in these parts is suddenly at an all-time high and there are voters from both sides of the border. Voting across the border is nothing new. It's been happening to such an extent that the demography in many border constituencies has changed completely. This, in fact, raises serious questions on how elections are won and lost in Lower Assam.

Though the BSF is doing what it can, infiltration is at an all-time high this season.

Barbed wire separates India and Bangladesh on the border. Yet, illegal infiltration from Bangladesh hardly stops on this long and porous border.

And during elections, infiltration increases manifold, most of it engineered by pimps on both sides of the border. So, even the Indian border guards have to launch special operations to check infiltration during elections.

And that's when river sorties are increased and land vigil intensified. Says A K Sharma, Commandant, 88 Battalion, BSF: "We are carrying out special operations because of the elections so that no infiltration takes place."

(With Shib Shankar Chatterjee)