A dangerous situation may arise in the country if Mamata Banerjee’s demand for granting citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants living in India for more than five years is conceded.

The West Bengal chief minister has called for restoration of the district magistrates’ former rights to grant citizenship which, in effect, may facilitate further immigration from Bangladesh.

The situation in West Bengal is so grim that as early as in the 1980s, TV Rajeswar, a former IB director and former governor of the state, was forced to write in a mass circulation daily cautioning against heavy infiltration from Bangladesh.

His article averred that in the 1981 census, the total population growth rate for West Bengal was 23.2 per cent while that of the minority community was 29.6 per cent. In the same census, the overall yearly population growth of the state was 2.3 per cent.

But in the districts bordering Bangladesh the figures were higher: 2.7 per cent in 24 Parganas, 3.3 per cent in Nadia, 2.55 per cent in Murshidabad, and 2.66 per cent in both Malda and Jalpaiguri.