Kolkata: Shuttling between Sandeshkhali and Balurghat, the Lok Sabha constituency from where he became a first-time MP in 2019 and from where he will be fighting the Lok Sabha polls this time, West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar said the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has come as a big relief to persecuted Hindus from Bangladesh who are now staying in the state.
Talking to ThePrint over phone, Majumdar said the CAA has not been notified for some petty political gains as some Opposition leaders are alleging.
“The CAA is here to fulfil the longstanding demand of refugees. The BJP had promised the CAA in its manifesto, and ‘Modi ki Guarantee’ has delivered on that promise. The CAA will deliver safeguards to Hindus from Bangladesh who have been staying in West Bengal,” he added.
The Bengal BJP chief said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is opposing the CAA to bolster her Muslim vote bank. “By doing so, she is provoking Muslims and dividing the state along sharp communal lines. Let me remind the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Mamata Banerjee that citizenship is in the Union List and the Parliament of Bharat has legislated on the CAA to make it an Act. Who is Mamata Banerjee to not allow the implementation of CAA in West Bengal?” Majumdar asked, adding that Mamata’s comments on the issue are an attack on the Constitution and sovereignty of “Bharat”.
On 13 March, two days after the Union government issued a notification for the CAA to come into effect, Mamata had said the CAA is linked with the National Register of Citizens and she would oppose the new legislation. She added she won’t allow detention camps in West Bengal, like the ones in Assam.
On 7 March — just before the CAA came into effect — BJP MLA Mukut Mani Adhikari, a Matua leader, joined the TMC, saying that the people of his constituency “have been deprived” in the last five years. Hours after CAA was notified, there were celebrations in various areas of the state that are dominated by refugees, particularly at Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district — an area dominated by the scheduled caste subsect Matuas, a group that’s the deciding factor in 8 of the state’s 42 parliamentary seats and whose citizenship status has been a subject of controversy in the state.
While the BJP had promised citizenship to the Matuas under the CAA, Adhikari’s switch to TMC has raised questions about which way the Matuas will vote.
However, Majumdar said Adhikari’s switch won’t damage the BJP.
“He is not that popular in the community. Also, the TMC thinks that CAA will only benefit the Matua community. They think by taking Adhikari, they can discredit the long-standing demand of all Hindu refugees who are staying in West Bengal. I am also a refugee, so are Namashudras, and many other communities,” Majumdar told ThePrint.
One thing the CAA cannot do, Majumdar said, is give hope to Bengali Hindus from West Bengal. And the events that unfolded in Sadeshkhali showed how vulnerable the Bengali Hindu is under Mamata Banerjee’s rule, he added.
Many Sandeshkhalis, many Shahjahans
Majumdar, who had been at the forefront of the Opposition protest against the TMC government for shielding its local leader Sheikh Shahjahan after allegations of land grab and sexual exploitation of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women came to the fore, said the issue is far from over even though Shahjahan is now in CBI custody.
“I think Sandeshkhali will become the TMC’s graveyard. The events at Sandeshkhali were far more horrific than what happened at Nandigram. Nandigram was about land grabbing and the unwillingness of the people to give away their land to industry. Sandeshkhali is about sexual exploitation of Hindu women, mostly from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, by Sheikh Shahjahan and his goons under the patronage of TMC and Mamata Banerjee,” Majumdar said.
Majumdar alleged that even after the arrest of Sheikh Shahjahan, his brothers are threatening local women at Sandeshkhali. “I make regular visits to Sandeshkhali because we need to stand with the people who are vulnerable under TMC rule. This event has opened a Pandora’s Box in Bengal.”
There are “many Sheikh Shahjahans in Bengal who are politically aligned with the TMC”, he alleged.
“In North 24 Parganas, there is Sheikh Shahjahan, in South 24 Parganas you have a goon called Jahangir. A few days ago, a Hindu house was vandalised by TMC goons in North Bengal. These are Muslim goons who have been given patronage by the ruling TMC,” he said.
The TMC has fielded Haji Nurul Islam from the Basirhat constituency which comes under the Sandeshkhali region for the Lok Sabha election.
Majumdar claimed Nurul Islam is the prime accused in the 2010 anti-Hindu Deganga riots.
“Haji Nurul Islam is not even a resident of Bashirhat. But he has been given a ticket to instil fear among local Hindus. This exposes the anti-Hindu mentality of Mamata Banerjee,” Majumdar said.
Another bone of contention for the Bengal BJP is the candidacy of actress Saayoni Ghosh, who in February 2015, on the occasion of Maha Shivratri, had tweeted a cartoon of a woman putting a condom over a Shivling. The actress had apologised for the post and said her account was hacked but the controversy refuses to die down.
Ghosh will now contest the Lok Sabha election from Jadavpur. However, Majumdar said Hindus haven’t forgiven her for the 2015 transgression.
“You cannot take Hindu tolerance for granted. It is time insults to our religion and sacred symbols stop. Bengal voters will punish the likes of Saayoni Ghosh and the party that supports her,” he added.
The ‘outsider versus insider’ debate
During the assembly elections in West Bengal in 2021, Mamata took on the BJP by calling it a party of “bohiragotos (outsiders)”. The TMC slogan for the polls was “Bangla nijer meyekei chay (Bengal wants its own daughter)”.
Majumdar said the TMC has now fielded many candidates from outside Bengal, whether these are cricketer Yusuf Pathan and Kirti Azad or actor Shatrughan Sinha.
“This is hypocrisy at its best. Just before announcing the party’s candidate list, TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched an attack on the BJP saying it is full of bohiragoto). And then they fielded Azad, Sinha, and Pathan. Can these three speak Bengali? Are they Bengali? Gujarati Muslim Yusuf Pathan has been fielded for Muslim appeasement. How come a Yusuf Pathan is not a bohiragoto but our country’s prime minister is an outsider?” Majumdar asked.
On the question of outsiders, the BJP courted controversy when it fielded Bhojpuri singer-actor Pawan Singh from Asansol. Immediately after, Singh’s film posters and lyrics of popular songs which were particularly derogatory towards Bengali women started getting shared on social media. Singh announced he would not contest the polls.
Majumdar said it was his personal decision.
“Legendary Bengali actor Utpal Dutt did many negative roles in films. In real life, he was an honourable man. The withdrawal of Pawan Singh’s candidature has nothing to do with the kind of films he did or songs he (has) sung. It was his personal decision, and the party has nothing to do with it,” he said.
If Pawan Singh’s candidature became a moment of embarrassment for the BJP, Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly opting to step down from his position and join the BJP was supposed to be a shot in the arm for the party. Ganguly has been a darling both for the local press and Opposition parties in West Bengal for pulling the ruling TMC in court with strongly-worded statements on several cases of corruption.
Instead, the TMC and other parties demanded that some of his judgments should be revisited as Ganguly said at a presser that the BJP had been in talks with him for a while.
Majumdar said the BJP had no connections with Justice Ganguly until he resigned. He also claimed that Justice Ganguly’s judgments have anyway been challenged by the TMC in the Supreme Court.
“Justice Ganguly has been a ‘people’s judge’ and the TMC’s allegations are simply politics at its lowest. What kind of precedence do they want to set up? Let me remind them that Justice Noor Alam Chowdhury, after his retirement from Calcutta High Court, had joined the TMC. So, by TMC’s logic, all judgments delivered by Justice Chowdhury should be revisited? Mamata Banerjee should learn to respect our independent institutions, especially, the judiciary,” Majumdar said.
Majumdar responded sharply to Mamata’s allegations that the Centre is blocking funds to the state, saying she excels in making false allegations but does not have data to support her falsehoods.
“When Banerjee was a central minister under UPA-I, Bengal used to be allocated Rs 300-400 crores. Now, under the Modi government, the railway budget for Bengal is more than Rs 12,000 crores. This is a tactic she has picked from the Left. The Left Front used to propagate this falsehood that the central government never cares about Bengalis, and Delhi is responsible for Bengal remaining an underdeveloped state,” Majumdar said.
The Bengal BJP chief said the politics of the Left, and now, Mamata Banerjee, is to pit the Centre against the state, people against people, and one language against another. “The Left did what they could to damage national integration. Mamata is indulging in the same falsehood, and she is every issue a Delhi versus Kolkata one,” he said.
Majumdar said such tactics won’t work with the voters anymore as the BJP is confident of getting at least 35 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.
“Recently, both PM Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah gave us the target of 35 seats from Bengal. We are confident of making that happen. We have our eyes set on 35 seats,” he said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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