NRC fear push Matuas to sit in

Culture

NRC fear push Matuas to sit in fasting until death bid: BJP divided

As many as 21 All India Matua Mahasangh devotees inclined to the Trinamul Congress have begun a fast-unto-death in protest against the Special Intensive Revision of the ensuing electoral rolls in Bengal.

The SIR move by the Election Commission has created sensation among the Matua community by and large in North 24 Parganas and Nadia as the community members migrated from Bangladesh apprehend 'loss of citizenship' suspecting SIR as a prelude of National Register of Citizens that poses an apprehension of the community's loss of existence in the country.

The agitated devotees gathered in front of the 'Matri Mandir' abode the departed matriarch Binapani Devi - popularly known as Boro Ma at Thakurnagar - the spiritual seat of the community in North 24 Parganas.

The Matua faction aligned with the BJP faction led by Bongaon MP Shantanu Thakur, meanwhile dismissed the protest and labeled the fasting bid as a 'plot' to 'incite tension' by involving 'Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas' who, he claimed, “Are neither Indian voters nor Matua devotees."

Adding a critical discomfort to the Thakur's own party, BJP's Haringhata MLA in Nadia, Asim Sarkar meanwhile has threatened to move to Court sometime next week seeking the court's direction to the Election Commission to honour two provisions of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019.

Section 6B of the CAA states that a person applying for citizenship under the CAA "shall not be disqualified for making application for citizenship under this section on the ground that the proceeding is pending against him and the Central Government or authority specified by it in this behalf shall not reject his application on that ground if he is otherwise found qualified for grant of citizenship under this section."

Another provision under the same section states that the person making the application "shall not be deprived of his rights and privileges to which he was entitled to on the date of receipt of the application."

The organisation alleged that the SIR process could lead to a large-scale exclusion of Matua voters — a move it said the community “will not tolerate.”

Preliminary mapping of the electorate in Bongaon subdivision has indicated that names of around 55 percent of current voters in the Matua belt were not found in the benchmark 2002 roll. The absence of their parents’ names from the 2002 roll has raised mass fears that many voters could be struck off during the 2025 revision.

The fasting devotees said their protest would continue until a representative from the Centre assured them of a rollback of the SIR exercise and guaranteed the inclusion of all those who had cast their votes in recent elections.