Thakurnagar: The road to the town Thakurnagar, via Habra and Bongaon South constituencies, in West Bengal’s North 24 Paragana district is dotted with congested localities, mostly unregulated refugee colonies and markets.
But this town, which is the headquarters of the Hindu minority community Matuas, has been a battleground between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
For the next two weeks, Thakurnagar will see major public shows by the BJP vying for the crucial votes of the Matuas who came to the state as refugees during partition.
Besides being electorally significant, the Matuas have also been part of the state’s politics over the years. Currently, it has a BJP camp and a Trinamool camp. The BJP camp, which makes up for a significant part of the community, has a primary demand — citizenship.
On 30 January, Home Minister Amit Shah will address a congregation of Matuas organised by the Matua Maha Sangh at the Thakurnagar Mandir Complex. Shah was invited by the organisation who expect a ‘time frame’ for the roll out of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
According to community leaders, if Shah fails to say “something reasonable” for the community, BJP may lose over two dozen seats in south Bengal.
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Electorally important in West Bengal
Matuas make up close to 2 crore or 20 per cent of West Bengal’s entire population and are spread over five districts — North 24 Pargana, Nadia, Howrah and Dinajpur (north and south).
In at least 30 constituencies of North 24 Pargana, Nadia and some parts of Howrah in south Bengal, Matuas constitute over 40-50 per cent of the total population.
While south Bengal, with 151 constituencies, is traditionally Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s green fort, BJP was able to make inroads here in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls through the North 24 Pargana district with the promise to implement CAA. The district is made up of 33 assembly constituencies and Banerjee won 27 of them in 2016.
In the 2019 general election, she lost in all 12 assembly segments to the BJP. Four of these — Bagda, Bongaon Uttar, Bongaon Dakshin and Gaighata — are SC seats with an 80 per cent Matua population. The community is also key to seven other seats in the district. Therefore, the Matuas are the dominant factor in over a dozen seats in North 24 Pargana, and thus, crucial for the BJP.
The Matua stake is also high in another south Bengal district — Nadia. Banerjee led in six of the 17 assembly seats in the district in 2019, while BJP took the lead in the rest with a reasonably good margin. Of the 17, five seats are reserved for SC.
Local BJP leaders told ThePrint that even a “token implementation of the CAA” could fetch the BJP several seats in North 24 Pargana and Nadia.
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Cult family, politics and TMC-BJP tussle
Thakurnagar, which is 75 km from Kolkata and just 20 km from the India-Bangladesh border, is a stronghold for the Matuas.
The Thakur-bari complex comprises a huge temple, a school, a well-maintained pond, a huge community centre, three swanky residences for members of the founding Thakur family, and a small single-storey humble house of the late Matua matriarch, Beenapani Devi, commonly known as ‘Baro Ma’.
A sect of Vaishnavite Hindus, Matuas came to West Bengal after partition. Descendants of the father-son duo Hari Chand and Guru Chand Thakur — who founded and settled the sect — they have traditionally supported the party in power.
The allegiance of the Maha Sangha, an apolitical organisation of the Matuas, has traditionally shifted with the political party in power.
P.R. Thakur, Beenapani Devi’s husband, was a senior member and a legislator of the Congress when it ruled Bengal. Later, in the 1970s, the sect supported the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
From 2009, Mamata Banerjee started cultivating support from the sect. Banerjee built a personal relationship with Baro Ma, and voluntarily took a membership of the Maha Sangha, which has five lakhs active members now.
Kapil Krishna and Manjul Krishna, Baro Ma’s two sons, were given important positions after Banerjee assumed office in 2011. Kapil became an MP while Manjul got a berth in Banerjee’s cabinet. After Kapil’s death, his wife Mamata Bala Thakur became an MP winning the by-election in 2015. Meanwhile, Manjul quit cabinet and Trinamool.
Now, there are two camps within the sect. The Trinamool camp led by Mamata Bal Thakur and the BJP camp led by Manjul’s son, Shantanu, who joined the BJP and became an MP in 2019 from the Bangaon constituency, defeating his aunt.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited Baro Ma last year before the general elections. She passed away in March 2019.
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‘We do not want to become Rohingyas of India’
While the road to Thakurnagar was dotted with BJP flags, Mamata Bala Thakur’s four-storied office-cum-residence in the town was locked and wore a deserted look.
“I am in Kolkata for treatment. But we are doing our work, Matuas are with Didi,” she told ThePrint. But there was no trace of Trinamool flags or gatherings anywhere near the complex.
A senior Trinamool leader, who wished to remain unnamed, said “Didi is directly reaching out to them. After Baro Ma’s death, the Sangha was politicised by her other grandsons, who are BJP leaders.”
And the only reason BJP has managed to garner this support is due to its elusive promise of citizenship.
“Since the announcement of CAA, Matuas are aligning towards BJP. They want citizenship at any cost. It is yet to see how they would respond, if BJP fails to implement CAA before elections,” political analyst Biswanath Chakraborti told ThePrint.
“We have been deceived in the name of politics for decades. Starting from Liaquat-Nehru pact to Rajiv Gandhi’s illegal migrant policies and now NDA’s 2003 act, every time the fate of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh hangs in balance. Our generation’s future cannot remain a subject to the whims of ruling dispensation,” Subrata Thakur, BJP MP Shantanu’s elder brother, told the Print. Subrata is also the Sanghadhipati of Matua Maha Sangha.
He added: “We do not want to become Rohingyas of India. They were there for decades. One day, they were driven away by the military. We want citizenship first. There cannot be any negotiation on the demand.”
This is a sentiment that is echoed across the town.
“We have voting rights, but no document to prove citizenship. In 2003, the government said people who entered India after 1971, need to prove lineage as Indian. We are at the mercy of the ruling party,” said Mithu Biswas, a senior member of the Maha Sangha.
‘CAA, a false agenda’
Meanwhile, the Trinamool camp is focusing on exposing the BJP’s “false agenda”.
“The Election Commission says, only citizens can vote. Matuas have voting rights. So, they are citizens. Didi is saying the same thing. It is BJP’s false agenda to mislead Matuas and fuel communal tension in the name of CAA. They polarised all border constituencies over CAA,” Surajit Biswas, a two-term Trinamool MLA from Bongaon south, told ThePrint.
Nirmal Ghosh, Trinamool’s district observer, also noted, “Two years have passed since they promised CAA. Covid did not stop the government from framing rules. They are fooling people.”
However, in the midst of election season, local Trinamool MLA of Gaighata — Thakurnagar’s assembly constituency — Putin Behari Ray, remains missing in action.
“He is a retired bureaucrat, he does not visit the constituency much,” said Biswas.
But BJP leaders claim the party has an edge in North 24 Pargana and Nadia.
“We are expecting more seats in the two districts if the Matuas remain with us. Amit Shah ji’s meeting is important for us,” said Manaspati Deb, BJP’s Bangaon president.
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