Shall swim to Italy, then Assam: Bangla envoy

Politics of influx is a necessity of the election in India said the Bangladesh outgoing envoy Syed Muazzem Ali and average Bangladeshi would never prefer India to earn income and rather go to Europe for higher wages.

"People of Bangladesh would prefer to swim in the Mediterranean and go to Italy than come to India. I got three people from Bangladesh to work here but not one stayed for more than six months," Syed Muazzam Ali, the Bangladesh high commissioner to India, said on Tuesday.

He was addressing a farewell press conference at New Delhi on November 19.

"Politics of influx is used by some political partieshere. There has been so much criticism of Bangladesh in Northeast India becauseof alleged illegal immigration from our side, but let me tell you that a personof my country would rather swim in the ocean and reach Italy instead of comingto India. A citizen of Bangladesh would like to go to a place where he can earnmore but as you know the per capita income in India is not that high,"said Syed Muazzem Ali addressing a farewell press conference at the Press Clubof India.

 He bluntly said that in Bangladesh the income of an ordinary person was higher than India and there was no necessity of coming here

Bangladesh envoy's comments are an oblique criticism of thecomments about Bangla citizens who were described as "termites" bythe Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the last Lok Sabha election campaign.

While frank on the illegal immigrants' issue, the high commissioner was careful while answering a question on the National Register of Citizens (NRC), over which the Bangladeshis have expressed concern at different forums.

"It is an internal issue. That is what the Indian leadershiphas told us time and again. We are conscious of the fact that this is takingplace, and we hope you can resolve it," he said..

The envoy, however, said that Dhaka sent 2.8 million tourists to India in the previous year and has the mechanism to track every citizen who violates conditions of the Indian visa and overstays.