The Matua Mahasangha had raised the demand for implementation of the CAA as its leaders have been facing embarrassing questions from the community on whether the Act, billed by the saffron camp as a one-stop solution for citizenship issues faced by Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, would be implemented or just stay on paper.

An insider in the Mahasangha said, “The CAA was used as a major plank by the BJP to win over Matua voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The party won both the Bongaon and Ranaghat parliamentary seats with a significant Matua population. Now, people want its implementation.”

Shantanu thakur, a leader of the BJP aligned faction in the Matua Mahasangha, earlier this year had written to home minister Amit Shah for an early implementation of the CAA. At a time when there are rumours that the Centre has no political will to see through the CAA and also the contentious National Register of Citizens, Shah played the card less than a year ahead of the Assembly elections in Bengal. Shah surprised everyone by focusing on Bengal instead of Bihar, where the polls concluded recently. It showed that BJP was super-confident of NDA’s victory in Bihar, which ultimately materialized. The party now wants to up its game for Bengal polls.

CAA and NRC are expected to become major poll issues of BJP in the run-up to the Assembly elections in Bengal coming year. Recently, the PM had said that the Opposition had peddled the lie that the CAA will rob many Indians of citizenship and that none has lost citizenship because of the contentious law. Shah, however, did not say whether the refugees would get citizenship before the polls.

“I have a commitment to implement CAA in Bengal,” Amit Shah had said. He had further added, “The process of framing rules for CAA got delayed due to covid -19 pandemic. We are committed to it.” He had recently gone to the Matua Mahasangha Mandir at Gouranganagar, where he had asked the community members to increase ground activity in support of CAA. In the Matua Mahasangha, Shantanu Thakur was recently at the centre of a controversy, when he had sent a letter from the matriarch of the community, Binapani Thakur to the CM of Bengal asking to support the CAA. It was alleged by TMC that he had forged the signature of 100 year-old Binapani Thakur in the letter.

Speaking at a meeting of social groups of North Bengal, JP Nadda, a month ago accused the Mamata Banerjee led government of “divide and rule politics” and raked up the topic of the Citizenship Amendment Act. He informed that the framing of rules under the Act was underway and that it would be implemented “very soon” adding that ground is shrinking below the feet of Mamta Banerjee.

The comments from BJP leaders have not gone down very well with the Trinamool Congress, with Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra taking to Twitter to criticize the BJP leaders recently over the same.

TMC MP Mahua Moitra stated that as long as the Mamata Banerjee’s party was in power, there would be no implementation of CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) in West Bengal. Moitra’s comment came after BJP MP and joint president of All India Matua Mahasangh, Shantanu Thakur, encouraged the GOI to execute the CAA as soon as possible.

Moitra was seen speaking on ABP Ananda, “We are not here to respond to what those uneducated and liars of BJP said. We are clearly stating that as long as we are in India, no one will have to prove citizenship in West Bengal.”

The Mahasangha’s move comes close on the heels of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recent outreach bids, such as the Matua Development Board with a grant of Rs 10 crore and pattas for Matuas to ensure their land rights, a move she said would eventually benefit 1.25 lakh families.

At the Mahasangha rally, Shantanu said only the CAA could solve the problem of refugees. “Some people are misleading refugees by offering patta, but that can never ensure them citizenship. We want the Centre to take initiative to implement CAA fast,” he said.  “The delay has made people restless,” he further added.

As a result, the controversial CAA, which has made it easier for non-Muslim victims of religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to get Indian citizenship, was welcomed with much joy by Matuas. The roll-out of the Act would mean permanent citizenship for all them.

West Bengal is scheduled to go to the polls in less than six months. Amit Shah and party chief J P Nadda will reportedly visit the state at least once a month till the elections to mobilize cadres, who are currently engaged in a violent stand-off with TMC workers. The BJP has been currently on the rise in West Bengal. It had won 18 seats and over 40 percent votes in the 2019 general election and its surge has sounded a warning for the ruling TMC.

The Congress and the CPM have been seen to use violence to capture office and stay in power, and the TMC is said to have continued in the same vein. As the BJP hits the trail aggressively, sensing an opportunity in the anti-incumbency that may have built over Banerjee’s two terms in office, it seems keen on polarizing the voters around identity issues. And it will use tools such as the CAA and NRC, more than questioning the government’s record on corruption and unemployment.

TMC has been against the implementation of CAA since the beginning. Moitra said that the BJP had betrayed citizens who voted for them and is now questioning without any shame the citizenship of the voters who had brought them to power. “As a government, you lack humility,” she had said during the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in the Lok Sabha.

Moitra, in her first speech in Parliament in June, last year, had caught people’s attention for pointing out the government’s “early signs of fascism”. She had said that the NRC, CAA, and National Population Register are “all tools in a Machiavellian design to first mark out and then disenfranchise and finally annihilate” Indians. “This is your biggest betrayal of those who voted for you. Nobody wants to be part of this ‘us versus them’ debate,” she said.

She also hit back at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda over his recent remark on the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). She further added that “Bengal will show the door to the saffron party before showing papers.”

Assembly polls are due in the state in April-May next year, and the fight for power in Kolkata promises to be a tough one as Banerjee will seek to return as chief minister for the third straight time.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.