The emphatic landslide victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal has thrust the issue of “push-backs” – or “push-ins,” as they are known in Dhaka – to the forefront of Bangladesh’s foreign policy concerns with India.This border issue has rapidly emerged as the most volatile flashpoint in bilateral relations with India, carrying the potential to derail normalisation efforts and trigger a serious humanitarian and diplomatic crisis.Since May 2025, Bangladeshi authorities have documented the forced entry of around 2,500 individuals into the country from India.These operations reportedly involve detentions lasting weeks or even months, followed by expulsion across the border by Indian officials – often at night and away from regular Border Guard Bangladesh patrol points.Among those pushed in have been several confirmed Indian nationals and Rohingya refugees who have fled persecution in Myanmar.In April, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma openly defended the practice. “Rude people don’t understand soft language,” he said, describing how suspected individuals are detained for 20 to 40 days before being pushed across the border.He claimed that strained relations with Bangladesh actually facilitate these operations. “I pray to god every morning that the situation that existed during Yunus’s time should remain the same; that relations should not improve further,” he said, because when the relationship between the neighbours is good, India usually halts such push-ins.Assam has emerged as a testing ground for aggressive push-backs. The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the West Bengal election has now heightened fears in Bangladesh that such actions could expand significantly.The BJP campaign rhetoric, led by figures such as Suvendu Adhikari, focused heavily on the emotive issue of “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and “Muslim foreigners”. Some claimed that there were as many as 20 million undocumented Bangladeshis in India.TMC is now a party of the infiltrators who works for the infiltrators and wins by the infiltrators votes. We have seen how shops were vandalised by illegal infiltrators during Ram Nabami. Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi appealed to drive out this regime of infiltrators.… pic.twitter.com/ANZi9rWgzh— BJP West Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) April 11, 2026