At the other end of the country, the Matua community in West Bengal expressed its displeasure with the BJP for breaking its promise to grant them citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act in response to a notification from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs ordering the district collectors of Mehsana and Anand in Gujarat to issue citizenship certificates to non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan under the Citizenship Act of 1955.
Adhikari, a Matua-majority Ranaghat Dakshin MLA, expressed his confidence in the ability of the Narendra Modi-led administration at the Centre to uphold its commitment.
However, not every community leader shares Adhikari’s optimism. If CAA is not implemented before 2024, a leading leader of the All India Matua Mahasangha, Asim Sarkar, claimed that the community members will not continue to support the BJP as they did during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
One of the leading Matua leaders in the BJP and Union Minister of State for Shipping Santanu Thakur stated that the CAA’s implementation had been postponed due to the numerous legal challenges it was facing.
After Partition and the establishment of Bangladesh in 1971, Matuas migrated from modern-day Bangladesh. They belong to the Scheduled Caste group known as Namasudras, which is represented in at least six West Bengali parliamentary constituencies. Community elders estimate the population at three crores, despite the lack of an official count, while a state minister in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government claims that there are 1.75 crore Namasudra voters. They are a group that is extremely important in elections and are well-represented in 26 Assembly seats, where they can have a significant impact on the results. These are mostly the Assembly segments of the North 24 Parganas Bongaon and Barasat parliamentary constituencies, as well as the Nadia district’s Krishnanagar and Ranaghat parliamentary seats.
Due in large part to the Matua vote and the BJP’s pledge to implement the CAA, West Bengal saw the saffron party’s best-ever performance in parliamentary elections in 2019. But some members of the community are upset because of the delay in putting the new citizenship law into effect. Adhikari, Sarkar, and Subrata Thakur were among the five community MLAs who left the state BJP’s WhatsApp groups in the latter part of last year. They did so in protest at the absence of Matua representation on the state party committee. Santanu Thakur also departed a number of the state unit’s WhatsApp groups within a few weeks.
When central BJP figures like Amit Malviya, the co-in-charge of the state unit, and BL Santhosh, the organization’s national general secretary, intervened, the Matua leaders were calmed. Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused the TMC of circulating rumors regarding the non-formulation of the guidelines for the modified law in May and made a pledge to the community that the CAA will be implemented once the Covid-19 crisis was resolved.
Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition for the BJP, wrongly asserted that the regulations for CAA had already been set and that the Centre had begun to move on it after the MHA notification for the Gujarat districts.
The TMC has vehemently opposed both the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the adoption of the CAA. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, reiterated after the MHA notification that the CAA and NRC would not be implemented in the state. Former Bengal BJP leader and national vice president Dilip Ghosh noted that the party upheld its promise when it came to the Ram Mandir issue and Article 370, and asserted that the CAA would not be an exception.
Former TMC MP Mamatabala Thakur attacked the opposition party, saying that the BJP was trying to dupe Matuas with the CAA farce. The late Binapani Devi, often known as Boro Ma, was the community’s matriarch and was married to Mamatabala.
News Mania Desk
