To stop erosion in Dalit vote bank, TMC floats refugee cell to counter BJP’s CAA campaign

With Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders conducting an extensive campaign on Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in Bengal to reach out to Hindus who left Bangladesh as refugees, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday decided tto launch the party’s refugee cell..

The cell will have units in all districts since the BJP is carrying out its pro-CAA movement through rallies as well as door-to-door campaigns. At least three senior state or central leaders are taking part in door-to-door campaigns every day with the party’s district leaders following up in their respective regions.

Significantly, a sizeable chunk of these Hindu refugees belong to backward communities and that adds a caste factor to the ongoing political tussle over the amended citizenship law.

BJP always had a refugee cell as the party considered Hindu migrants as one of its focus areas but did not have much luck with getting their votes until the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it won 18 of the states’s 42 seats.

The TMC’s refugee cell will be headed by a leader from the Namasudra (dalit) community and carry out door-to-door campaign to convince people that CAA will land Hindu migrants from Bangladesh in bigger trouble instead of doing them any good.

Once treated as untouchables, the ancestors of majority of the Namasudras in the state originally hailed from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and migrated to West Bengal after 1947 to escape religious persecution. There are about 10 million people from the Namasudra community in Bengal. During the 2011 census, Bengal’s population stood at 91.3 million.

Part of this Dalit population is the Dalit Matua community which is headed by its supreme body, All India Matua Mahasangha. The Mahasangha played host to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally at Thakurnagar in North 24-Parganas district before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Contesting on a BJP ticket, the sect’s young face, Shantanu Thakur, defeated his aunt, TMC’s Mamata Bala Thakur, at the Bongaon seat.

After Partition, the Matuas relocated to West Bengal and became the state’s second-most influential scheduled caste community with an estimated population of more than three million.

According to estimates by ruling and opposition parties, these communities can influence poll results in more than 50 of the states’ 294 assembly seats. Most of these seats are located in districts along the India-Bangladesh border.

Significantly, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh has been extensively touring certain parts of north Bengal over the past few days where the presence of Hindu refugees is significant. On Saturday, he addressed meetings at Dalkhola and Kaliaganj in North Dinajpur district. BJP lost the Kaliaganj assembly by-poll in November last year and the party’s candidate, Kamal Chandra Sarkar, said on record that his party failed to counter the anti-CAA campaign of TMC.

On Friday evening, TMC chief Mamata Banerjee asked the party’s district unit presidents to submit in two weeks the names of leaders who will head the refugee cells. TMC’s all-India general secretary Subrata Bakshi will select the district cell leaders.

TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said, “Mukul Chandra Bairagyo has been appointed state convener of our refugee cell. He will travel across the state.”

Bairagyo, the working president of All India Namasudra Bikas Parishad, was earlier appointed by the chief minister as chairman of the newly-formed Namasudra Development Board.

“We have thoroughly analysed the CAA. We believe that it will do us more harm than good. Most of us have acquired identity documents such as voter ID, Aadhaar and PAN, using whatever means it might have required. We are all settled. Why should we voluntarily declare ourselves foreigners and apply for citizenship? We will get entangled in a web of legal complexities,” said Bairagyo.

The TMC’s decision comes in the wake of the BJP refugee cell’s growing influence with the cell convener, Mohit Ray, emerging as a key figure in BJP’s Bengal plan.

Mohit Ray said he sees no chance of TMC’s campaign finding any resonance among the refugees. “Bairagyo and his men are harming the interests of Hindu refugees by preaching unity between Dalits and Muslims, despite the fact that these people became refugees in the first place because of religious persecution in Bangladesh. Mamata Banerjee’s overt support to Muslim fundamentalists has further affected the lives of these Hindu migrants,” Ray said.

Banerjee will address three public meetings in refugee-dominated areas over the next three weeks. These will be held at Bongaon in North 24-Parganas district, Ranaghat in Nadia district and Kalyani-Gayeshpur area on the border of the districts of Nadia and North 24-Parganas. Incidentally, BJP won the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat as well.

Banerjee will hold a meeting with booth-level workers next month in Nadia district. “She will address three rallies in Nadia and North 24-Parganas. The dates and locations will be announced later,” said Chatterjee.