3 months ago
1
Panic, choler and suspicion are rippling done West Bengal's Matua heartland, pushing the BJP into a antiaircraft mode successful its bastion adjacent arsenic the TMC senses a governmental opening, aft large-scale deletions nether the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The Election Commission's archetypal intensive revision since 2002 has reopened aged wounds successful the borderline districts. For the Matuas, a Scheduled Caste Hindu exile assemblage with decisive power successful implicit 50 Assembly seats crossed North 24 Parganas and Nadia districts successful southbound Bengal and parts of northbound Bengal, the workout has revived anxieties implicit identity, documentation and belonging.
Under the SIR framework, voters whose names did not diagnostic successful the 2002 rolls were required to furnish eligibility documents. For lakhs who emigrated from Bangladesh implicit decades, often without ceremonial paperwork, that scrutiny has present translated into deletions, leaving galore confronting disenfranchisement.
The numbers underline the scale. In the 2nd phase, Dabgram-Fulbari saw 16,491 deletions, Bagda 15,303 and Kalyani 9,037, each Matua-majority seats.
Bagda had already recorded 24,927 deletions successful the archetypal phase, Gaighata 16,718, Bangaon-Uttar 26,183 and Bangaon-Dakshin 18,562. With caller cuts, full deletions basal astatine 40,230 successful Bagda, 34,109 successful Bangaon-Uttar, 25,464 successful Bangaon-Dakshin, 23,488 successful Gaighata, and astir 15,000 successful Swarupnagar. In astir segments, thousands person been placed 'under adjudication' category.
Across Nadia and North 24 Parganas, respective Matua-dominated seats person reported deletions ranging from 25,000 to 40,000 since the process began, adjacent arsenic thousands stay nether adjudication — a parallel excavation that could further reshape the arithmetic.
Overall, 63.66 lakh names, astir 8.3% of the electorate, person been deleted since November, reducing West Bengal's elector basal from 7.66 crore to 7.04 crore. Another 60 lakh voters stay 'under adjudication'.
While the EC maintains the workout is aimed astatine removing duplicate, deceased and ineligible voters, successful the Matua belt, it has go governmental dynamite.
In Thakurnagar, the Matua sect's spiritual headquarters, residents person Aadhaar, ration and elector cards but galore fearfulness these could beryllium rendered meaningless arsenic galore availed these documents illegally and present their names person been deleted from the rolls.
The Matuas, followers of a 19th-century reformist question that challenged caste hierarchies, began migrating from East Pakistan successful the 1950s. Today, they signifier astir 17% of West Bengal's colonisation and represent the state's largest Scheduled Caste group.
Recognised arsenic a pivotal exile ballot bank, they were erstwhile courted by the Left, aboriginal by the TMC, and since 2019 person tilted importantly towards the BJP aft the enactment foregrounded the citizenship plank.
Of the astir 50 assembly seats wherever Matuas play a decisive role, a bulk went to the BJP successful 2021. Party insiders accidental Matua and different refugee-dominated areas unsocial accounted for implicit fractional of the BJP's tally of 77 successful the past assembly polls. The enactment basal remained mostly intact successful the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Now, interior mapping by assemblage leaders suggests that successful respective areas nether Bongaon and Ranaghat assembly segments, astir 30-40% of voters person been affected for failing to nexus their names to the 2002 rolls. In parts of Krishnanagar and Ranaghat, wherever Matua voters signifier astir 60% of the population, akin fears are surfacing.
Mahitosh Baidya, wide caput of the Matua Mahasangha, described the temper arsenic 1 of "confusion and anxiety".
"More than 50% of the Matuas person been omitted from the elector list. We truly don't person immoderate answers arsenic to what to bash next," helium said.
He said citizenship certificates issued truthful acold successful Matua belts are "minuscule" compared to an estimated 1 crore eligible applicants.
Union Minister and Bongaon MP Shantanu Thakur, the BJP's Matua face, sought to reassure the community.
"There is nary request to interest if the names of exile Matuas are deleted. They volition get Indian citizenship nether the CAA. Those who entered India till December 31, 2024, person thing to interest about," helium said.
A section BJP person successful Bangaon admitted determination is "visible erosion" among sections of voters who had been ardent supporters since 2019.
"People are asking wherefore their names were deleted. We are telling them this is rotation purification and that CAA volition support genuine refugees," helium said.
TMC MP Mamatabala Thakur, who leads a rival faction successful the Thakur family, which is the spiritual caput of the Matua community, alleged that those who emigrated aft 2002 and deficiency documents person been disproportionately affected.
"The names of Matuas person been deleted arsenic those who came aft 2002 deficiency documents and volition suffer voting rights. We had warned from the opening that Matuas would endure the astir due to the fact that of the BJP's citizenship jumla," she said.
For the BJP, the deletions correspond a high-stakes gamble: treble down connected the CAA plank and committedness eventual restoration, oregon hazard alienating the exile constituency that powered its post-2019 surge.
For the TMC, the churn offers a accidental to reclaim exile votes, but it besides puts the load of managing anxiousness successful borderline districts wherever individuality authorities runs deep.
With hardly 2 months to spell for the assembly polls, the Matua loop has turned into the election's sharpest faultline, wherever each deletion doubles arsenic a governmental trigger.
