A Union Ministry of Home Affairs notification directing 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 has created ripples at the other end of the country, with the Matua community in West Bengal expressing its displeasure with the BJP for failing to keep its promise of granting them citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Adhikari, who is the MLA from the Matua-dominated Ranaghat Dakshin constituency, said he was confident that the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre would keep its promise. “Matuas want citizenship to be given under CAA 2019, which has religious persecution as a clause. The CAA 2019, once implemented, will give Matua community its due recognition,” he added.
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But not every leader of the community is as hopeful as Adhikari. A senior leader All India Matua Mahasangha leader Asim Sarkar said the community members would not keep their faith in the BJP as they did during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections if CAA was not implemented before 2024. “We think the BJP leadership will keep its poll promise of 2019. But if it is not implemented before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Matuas will stop trusting the BJP,” said Sarkar, also a BJP MLA from Haringhata in Nadia district. “What was the need to pass a new law in 2019 if you are granting citizenship under the 1955 Act? I think there should be a clarification.”
Union Minister of State for Shipping Santanu Thakur who is one of the top Matua leaders in the BJP said CAA implementation had been put on hold as there were several pending cases against it. “There are several cases that were filed by forces who did not want CAA 2019 to be implemented. Once these are cleared, it is likely to get implemented,” said Thakur. “The 1955 act is applicable till the new act of 2019 gets implemented. Matuas won’t be deprived of citizenship.”
Matuas came from present-day Bangladesh after Partition and after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971. They are Namasudras, a Scheduled Caste group with a presence in at least six parliamentary seats in West Bengal. While no official count is available, community leaders put their population at three crores, while according to a state minister in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government there are 1.75 crore Namasudra voters. They are an electorally crucial group and have a strong presence in 26 Assembly seats where they can play a key role in determining the outcome of elections. These are mainly Assembly segments in the Bongaon and Barasat parliamentary constituencies in North 24 Parganas and the Krishnanagar and the Ranaghat parliamentary constituencies in Nadia district.
Matua support, on the back of the BJP’s promise of implementing the CAA, was crucial, to a large extent, in the saffron party putting in its best-ever parliamentary election result from West Bengal in 2019. But delay in implementing the amended citizenship law has left sections of the community miffed. Late last year, five MLAs from the community, including Adhikari, Sarkar, and Subrata Thakur, quit several WhatsApp groups of the state BJP, expressing their resentment over the lack of Matua representation in the state party committee. Within weeks, Santanu Thakur also left various WhatsApp groups of the state unit.
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The Matua leaders were pacified when central BJP leaders such as BL Santhosh, the BJP national general secretary for the organisation, and Amit Malviya, the co-in-charge of the state unit, intervened. In May, Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised the community that the CAA would be implemented once the Covid-19 situation was over and accused the TMC of spreading rumours about the non-formulation of the amended law’s rules.
“Mamata didi only wants to see infiltration (into Bengal) and that our refugee brothers do not get citizenship. But the Trinamool must listen to this clearly, that the CAA was a reality, is a reality and will remain a reality,” Shah said in Siliguri in north Bengal.
Following the MHA notification for the Gujarat districts, BJP’s Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari incorrectly claimed that the rules for CAA had already been framed and the Centre had started to make a move on it. “The Centre has started the process of enforcing CAA. Gujarat is the first state. It will be implemented in West Bengal as well. It is an old demand of our Matua community. The Centre earlier said that rules for CAA were being framed,” Adhikari said on Tuesday.
The TMC has been vociferously opposed to the implementation of the CAA and the proposed National Register of Citizens NRC). After the MHA notification, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reiterated that CAA and NRC would not be implemented in West Bengal. “I have said earlier that we are not going to implement CAA in West Bengal. We will stick to that position. These are political stunts ahead of the Gujarat elections. For us people’s lives are more important than political stunts,” she added.
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In response, Suvendu said, “If this can be implemented in Gujarat, then it can obviously be implemented in West Bengal, too. West Bengal and Gujarat are not different.”
BJP national vice president and former Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh pointed out that the party kept its promise “when it came to the Ram Mandir issue and Article 370” and claimed CAA would not be an exception.
Hitting out at the Opposition party, former TMC MP Mamatabala Thakur claimed that the BJP was trying to fool Matuas with the “CAA hoax”. Mamatabala is the daughter-in-law of the community’s late matriarch Binapani Devi, who was popularly referred to as “Boro Ma”.
“They are trying to rake up the issue again ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” said Mamatabala.
– With PTI inputs
7 min read
