Kolkata

For years, the BJP's equation with Bengal's Matua refugees was built on a single promise -- back the party, and the long uncertainty over their citizenship will be resolved.

But the final electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) have turned that promise into the saffron party's biggest vulnerability.

Deletion of lakhs of names from the Matua community in Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts has set off the first signs of political drift in the refugee Hindu belt that has been at the heart of the BJP's expansion in Bengal since 2019.

What has shaken the party is not just the scale of the deletions, but the places which were most affected.

It was Bongaon, Bagdah, Gaighata, Swarupnagar, Ranaghat and Krishnanagar where the BJP had built an apparently durable social base around the promise of nationality under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The political conversation in these areas has changed sharply. Till a few months ago, the BJP was asking Matua voters to back it in the hope that the CAA would finally settle decades of uncertainty over identity and belonging.

Now, many of the same voters are again asking why, after years of supporting the BJP on the promise of citizenship, they were being "forced to prove that they belong here".

"After voting on the promise of citizenship for years, I have lost my voting rights. If my name is not on the voter list, what is the guarantee that tomorrow I will not be told I do not belong here?" posed Ashok Mondal of Gaighata.

The first signs of voter base erosion are already visible. In Boyra village of Bagdah, nearly 50 Matua families moved to the TMC from the BJP after finding their names missing from the rolls.

"We voted for the BJP because they said they would end all this. Instead, we have lost our voting rights too," said one villager who recently joined the TMC.

The Matua vote is spread across nearly 55 assembly constituencies in Nadia, North 24 Parganas and parts of north Bengal. The community has often determined electoral outcomes in south Bengal.

BJP insiders privately admit that Matua and refugee-dominated seats contributed more than half of their tally of 77 seats in the 2021 polls.

That is why the final electoral rolls have left the BJP at unease.

"If the Matua vote is disrupted, we will suffer because this is our core social base. Our challenge now is to hold on to the voters who remain on the rolls and convince the others that their names will be restored," a BJP leader from Bongaon told PTI.

North 24 Parganas, which has the largest concentration of the Matua community, lost more than 12.3 lakh names in the voter list revision.

The heaviest blow came in the Bongaon subdivision.

Total deletions stand around 55,000 in Bagda, while Bongaon North and Bongaon South together saw nearly 75,000 names disappear from the rolls. Around 39,000 names were deleted in Gaighata, and around 18,000 in Swarupnagar.

In Nadia, where Matua influence stretches across Ranaghat, Krishnaganj and parts of Chakdaha, nearly 78 per cent of those placed under adjudication were struck off -- the highest rate in the state.

Researchers studying SIR data say the highest rates of "unmapped" voters were found in constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Caste, such as Gaighata and Bagdah, affecting mostly Matuas and Namasudras.

That has left the BJP in an awkward position in the very areas where it had argued that Hindu refugees need not worry about documents since the CAA would protect them.

Before the election, the party opened CAA helpdesks in parts of Bengal and urged refugee Hindus to apply first and verify later. The message was that even those without formal documents would eventually receive citizenship.

But after the final poll rolls were published, many of those families are again standing in queues with old voter slips, Aadhaar cards, ration cards and school certificates, trying to establish their identity.

Bongaon MP and Union minister Shantanu Thakur insisted there was no reason for people to panic.

"No Hindu refugee will have to go anywhere. Nobody will be pushed to Bangladesh. We are helping everyone file appeals. Everybody will get citizenship and will have their names restored to the voter rolls," he said.

The BJP has deployed workers in the Matua-dominated areas to help people file Form 6 applications and online appeals. Yet the reassurance has not fully worked.

"There is anger, confusion and helplessness. People thought the citizenship question had been settled. Instead, they are once again standing in lines with papers in their hands," said Mahitosh Baidya of the All India Matua Mahasangha.

He said citizenship certificates issued so far in the Matua areas account for less than one per cent of an estimated one crore applicants.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has sought to turn that anger into a political counterattack, arguing that even Hindu refugees who voted for the BJP are no longer safe from name deletion.

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Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur, who heads the TMC-backed faction of the Matua Mahasangha, said, "Matuas voted for the BJP, believing it would give them citizenship. Now, even their voting rights are being snatched away. People are terrified that after their names vanish from the rolls, tomorrow they may be branded foreigners."

For years, the BJP told Bengal's refugee Hindus that citizenship was only a vote away. After the final SIR rolls, many in the Matua heartland are asking, if their names on the voter list are no longer secure, what exactly did that vote guarantee?