Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again vowed to thwart the implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act and National Citizenship Register.
Addressing a meeting of the Matua community at Bongaon in North 24 Parganas bordering Bangladesh the Chief Minister on Wednesday said that the BJP was trying to befool the people with fake assurance of providing citizenship through the CAA “but truth to be told there is no need to provide any citizenship to the Matuas as they are already Indian citizens,” as they have been living in this part of the border for generations and taking part in elections.
“Refugees come and settle at a place which subsequently becomes a refugee colony. In Bengal there are 94 such state government refugee colonies … apart from this there were 250 central government colonies of the refugees. We declared all of the residents of these colonies as Indian citizens.
“The BJP is trying to enforce CAA and NRC because they want to demolish the Bengali community … They want to throw out the Bengalis and then turn Bengal into Gujarat which will not be allowed.”
The Matuas comprised a traditional vote bank of the Left Front before switching en masse to the Trinamool Congress. Today the community account for about 90 lakh voters and can throw a good impact on 70 Assembly seats in three districts of North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Nadia.
The BJP which has made an inroad into the TMC’s Matua vote bank have promised citizenship to the SC community --- a large part of which came from Bangladesh post Partition and post 1972 war.