Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, on his second visit in about two weeks in an ideal opportunity in West Bengal, engaged with Matuas, a Dalit refugee group with origin in Bangladesh. The impact of this group is assumed to be spread in more than 50 assembly seats in the state. The visit was in preparation for the upcoming state election in West Bengal.

Matua – the Namasudras

Classified as a Scheduled Caste (SC), Matuas are Namasudras or lower caste Hindu refugees who have moved to West Bengal from neighbouring Bangladesh (earlier East Pakistan). The group has stayed in Bengal for quite a long time since the partition. They comprise the state’s second-biggest Scheduled Caste populace. Generally amassed in North and South 24 Parganas, & Howrah they are also spread across border regions like Nadia, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur and Malda.

The Namasudras constitute 17.4 percent of the SC populace, the second biggest block in the state after the Rajbanshis in north Bengal. An Overwhelming majority of Bengal’s 1.8 crore SC populace (at 99.96%) are Hindus. Of its 42 Lok Sabha seats, Bengal has 10 seats held for Scheduled Castes of which BJP has stowed four – Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, Bishnupur, and Bongaon in 2019. Understanding the importance of a saffron influence among SCs, the BJP has been striving to get its caste arithmetic directly into Bengal polity.

Also see: Trilateral fight in West Bengal election 2021

Maurya visit

Maurya, an OBC leader, associated and connected with Matuas, additionally talked about the alleged neglect of Bangladeshi Hindu Community, who he claimed were denied citizenship rights because of vote bank concerns. This point was also stressed by the BJP men going with Maurya on his Bengal campaign.

The Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (Keshav Prasad Maurya) on his previous meeting had said that the BJP, after coming in West Bengal, will deal with the complaints of the Matuas who are refugees  holding influence in numerous seats in the election bound state.

Maurya said while addressing a meeting of leaders and supporters in Uluberia assembly segment, “When we structure our administration in West Bengal, we will re-establish the honour of Bangladeshi Hindus and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) could well assist to ensure that they get their due. The BJP under the Prime Minister has been doing a lot of things for poor people; however the advantages are not arriving at Bengal.”

Engaging with such a key vote bank chunk is indeed playing the Hindu card. It is clearly a part of BJP’s arrangement of engagement on religious-identity lines in West Bengal.

Also see: Battleground of Bengal election 2021

Playing the caste card

In the 2017 UP polls, the BJP had focused on OBCs and Dalits to come to power in the most crowded state after 14 years. From that point onward, the BJP has kept on associating with OBCs and backward castes to hold onto its political strength.

“There is incredible demand for Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s rallies in WB,” a senior BJP leader said. It has been suggested that Yogi will visit West Bengal soon. Different cadres from UP, committed to the party and its belief system, especially those who know Bengali language and culture would be consistently shipped off to West Bengal to build up an association with the electorate there through road corner meetings, another party leader added.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set an objective for BJP winning 200 of the 294 assembly seats in West Bengal Vidhan Sabha. UP BJP representative Harish Chandra Srivastava, stated, “It is not at all an ambitious objective. In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll in West Bengal, we got 40% of the vote share, against 43 percent of the TMC, and stowed 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats.” In the 2016 Assembly election, the BJP had improved its vote share to 10.3 percent against 4.1 percent votes it got in the 2011 state polls. “In 2014 LS Poll, the BJP got 17 percent votes and won two seats as well. So the party’s graph  has been growing,” said Maluka Khanna,  a professor of political theory from Lucknow University.