Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is in West Bengal campaigning for the BJP as the state readies for assembly election, on Thursday reiterated that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) will be implemented as soon as the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive ends.
“There are people who are spreading misinformation about CAA. But, I told my brother Shantanu Thakur (BJP MP from Bongaon) that I will come personally and clear all the confusion. I could not make it here recently (on January 30 he postponed his Thakurnagar rally due to the Delhi blast case near the Israel Embassy). Mamata di was very happy that I could not make it. But I would like to tell her that I will come again and again till I free Bengal from her misrule,” Shah said in Thakurnagar, a stronghold of the Matuas – a refugee community credited with helping the saffron brigade secure numbers in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Party insiders feel that Shah’s rally in Thakurnagar is an attempt to appease the Matua community ahead of the crucial assembly polls scheduled to be held in April-May in the state.
Defending the legislation, which its opponents say is discriminatory against the Muslim community, Shah, said, “Propaganda has been spread that this bill is against the Muslims in India. They are Indian citizens and will always remain. There is no question of discrimination against Muslims. No Muslim in India needs to worry due to CAA.”
“Today, as a Union Home Minister of India, I would like to announce from this ‘pavitra bhumi’ (sacred land) that CAA will not snatch away the citizenship of my Muslim brothers. There is no clause in CAA to do so. It is an Act for giving citizenship and not for snatching it,” he added.
He said, “In 2018, we promised to ensure justice to my Matua brothers and sisters that we will bring citizenship act. We fulfilled our promise in 2019 after Matua’s brothers and sisters fully supported us. Today, I would like to assure you that we will implement CAA once the COVID-19 vaccination process gets over.”
Hitting out at Mamata for opposing CAA, he said, “Mamata di is saying that she will not allow us to implement CAA. But I would like to ask her how she can stop an act from being implemented which was passed in the parliament. Also, in April she will not be on CM’s chair and we will ensure this as we are certainly going to win the upcoming State polls.”
Shah’s clarification on CAA came after Shantanu Thakur – a BJP MP from Bengal’s Bongaon and a prominent Matua leader from Thakurnagar – had recently demanded that the Centre clarify its stand over the implementation of CAA in the state.
Thakur, who won the Bongaon seat while riding the waves of BJP’s citizenship promise to the Matua community, has found himself in an odd situation over the delay in the implementation of CAA in Bengal.
On Thursday, Shah also announced the ‘Refugee Kalyan Yojna’, renaming of Thakurnagar Railway Station to ‘Sree Dham Thakurnagar’ railway station and pension for Matua/refugee community people.
In 2019 Lok Sabha election, it’s the refugees, particularly the Matuas, who helped the saffron brigade secure 9-10 seats out of 18 constituencies they had won. The BJP had won from Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Raiganj, Balurghat, North Malda, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Barrackpore, Hooghly, Jhargram, Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura, Bishnupur, Burdwan-Durgapur, Asansol seats in Bengal.
The Matuas are said to have played an important role in Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Raiganj, Balurghat, North Malda, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Burdwan-Durgapur and Asansol. All of these seats combined consist of nearly 70 assembly segments and this is the area where BJP is looking to reach the magic figure of 148 seats (out of total 294 elected and 1 nominated) in the 2021 Assembly Polls in West Bengal.
The Matuas, interestingly, were also a major political force behind Mamata Banarjee in the 2011 assembly polls when she ousted the state’s Left Front government after 34 years.
Since then, in 2014 Lok Sabha polls and in the 2016 Assembly election, it’s only with the blessings of Binapani Devi Thakur (influential Matua leader who died on March 5, 2019) that the TMC is in power in the area.
However, the wind changed in 2019 when the BJP managed to snatch the seat from the ruling TMC by playing its CAA card.
The CAA is crucial in Bengal and this was precisely one of the reasons, Prime Minister Narendra Modi – armed with Citizenship Amendment Bill – kicked off his campaign in Bengal near ‘Matua’ headquarters at Thakurnagar under Bongaon Lok Sabha constituencies (won by BJP’s Shantanu Thakur) on February 2, 2019.
Then, PM Modi had said, “During partition people from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan fled amid communal violence. Sikh, Hindu, Christian, Parsis faced utmost atrocities. Now you tell me, after so many years don’t you think they have every right to live with dignity here in India? Therefore, we brought this Citizenship Amendment Bill but I would like to ask Mamata ji’s stand on this. I would like to assure you (Matua community) that our government is with you in this issue.”
As per Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samanway Samiti (NBBUSS) – a refugee welfare organisation –there are approximately six crore refugees in India. of which in West Bengal alone the figure is around 3.5 crore – a key factor for any political party.
Party leaders at both the TMC and BJP camps feel that the refugee card will undeniably be the key factor which could turn the tables in this upcoming polls.
Last year in January, West Bengal had become the fourth state to pass a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in its assembly. Other Opposition-rules states who have adopted the anti-CAA resolution include Rajasthan, Punjab and Kerala.
Banerjee had even said that the CAA and the NRC citizenship verification drive can only be enforced in Bengal over her “dead body”.
India witnessed widespread protests against the law which its opponents feel deliberately excludes Muslims while offering fast-track citizenship for Pakistani, Afghan and Bangladeshi illegal immigrants from six minority religious groups, including Hindus — provided they entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
In December, Shah had said that rules for CAA were in the process of being framed. they were delayed because of the pandemic situation and the matter will be considered once the Covid-19 vaccination starts and the corona chain breaks.
Addressing a press conference in Bolpur, West Bengal, Shah had claimed that Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress raked up the “outsider- insider” issue to divert public attention from the failures of the state government and said that a “son of the soil” would lead the state if the BJP is voted to power. “The rules of the CAA are yet to be framed as such a massive process could not be carried out because of the corona. As soon as (COVID) vaccination starts and corona cycle breaks, we will consider it,” he said.
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