Kolkata: With the Centre delaying the implementation of the Citizenship (Modification) Act (CAA), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee reached out to the Matuas, reminding them of how she had labored for his or her improvement and organized for the medical remedy of their late matriarch.
Mamata additionally accused the Centre and the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) of creating “empty guarantees earlier than elections”, and asserted that she is going to by no means enable the implementation of CAA in Bengal.
“I took duty of Boro Ma’s remedy in Kolkata when she was unwell. The Trinamool Congress has labored for the event of Matuas together with schooling,” Mamata informed a rally in Nadia on Wednesday. “The BJP solely makes empty guarantees earlier than elections.”
“Gujarat elections have been introduced, and each time elections method the BJP speaks of implementing the CAA and the NRC. Are Matuas not residents of this nation? Will the BJP determine who’re residents? I cannot enable the CAA to be carried out in West Bengal,” Mamata thundered.
The event got here days after the Ministry of House Affairs (MHA) empowered district magistrates of 31 districts and the house secretaries of 9 states to grant citizenship to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians arriving from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan beneath the CAA.
In February 2021, whereas addressing an election rally in Thakurnagar, Union House Minister Amit Shah had assured the Matuas that the CAA guidelines could be framed as quickly because the Covid pandemic ebbed away. Nevertheless, the Centre has now taken a three-month extension to border the CAA guidelines in October.
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Influential neighborhood
Years after arriving from erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) to flee spiritual persecution, the Matuas are actually discovered concentrated in Bengal’s Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts.
The sect was based by Harichand Thakur whose household in Thakurnagar leads the Matuas. Union Minister Shantanu Thakur belongs to this household. The Matuas have been pro-CAA and electorally backed the BJP within the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 Bengal polls.
The three crore-plus robust neighborhood wields sufficient affect to swing electoral fortunes in no less than 30 Meeting segments in addition to affect ballot outcomes at 50 others in North and South Bengal.
A number of politicians, together with the likes of PM Narendra Modi and Mamata, made a beeline prior to now to fulfill Binapani Devi, the late Matua matriarch who was also called Boro Ma, on the neighborhood’s headquarters in Thakurnagar. Simply earlier than the 2021 Bengal elections, Mamata had allotted Rs 10 crore to the Matua Improvement Board to woo the Scheduled Caste neighborhood.
Political analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay felt the TMC can take this chance to woo the Matua neighborhood. “The foundations of CAA are but to be notified. The BJP has did not hold its promise to the neighborhood… So naturally, the Matuas will swing in the direction of the TMC as an alternative of supporting the BJP who had promised CAA however hasn’t been in a position to ship,” the political science professor at Kolkata’s Bangabasi Faculty stated.
After the demise of Boro Ma in 2019, there was a break up within the Matua neighborhood with the BJP-backed Shantanu Thakur heading one part and the opposite headed by his aunt Mamta Bala Thakur, who finds favour with the TMC.
The Matuas have the strongest holds within the districts of Nadia and North 24 Parganas alongside the India-Bangladesh border.
Within the 2021 Bengal elections, the Trinamool Congress gained solely 5 seats — Tehatta, Nabadwip, Habra, Ashoknagar and Sandeshkhali — in districts. The BJP, in distinction, gained a dozen seats from Nadia and North 24 Parganas. Nevertheless, their successful margin was narrower than in 2019. The TMC additionally gained 31 seats in South 24 Parganas the place the Matuas have a presence.
Chief of the Opposition and BJP chief Suvendu Adhikari had claimed that the CAA could be carried out “quickly” in Bengal. “The Centre has began the method of implementing the CAA. Gujarat is the primary state. Bengal can’t be unnoticed of the CAA implementation course of. It’s an previous demand of our Matua neighborhood,” he had stated.
The BJP, too, has confronted warmth from its personal Matua leaders, together with Union minister Shantanu Thakur, for delaying the implementation of the CAA. In January, the BJP’s Bengal refugee cell wrote to the MHA stating the Matuas had been apprehensive in regards to the vital delay within the CAA implementation.
Former Trinamool MP Mamta Bala Thakur, nevertheless, stated the Matuas should not searching for the CAA as they’re already residents of this nation. “The BJP-led central authorities is granting citizenship beneath the 1955 Act. Then what was the necessity for the amendments? That is politics. We’re already residents. How else might we change into MPs and MLAs? The BJP in 2019 and 2021 captured the CPI-M [Communist Party of India-Marxist] supporters and gained these seats however they gained’t win once more,” she informed ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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