Prime Minister Narendra Modi will put the Citizenship Amendment Bill to public test on Saturday, at West Bengal's Thakurnagar, a hub of four million Bengali Hindu refugees. Many members of the Matua community, a refugee sect, have not been made citizens yet. Modi plans to meet Binapani Devi, the 102-year-old Matua matriarch, in North 24 Parganas. She is currently embroiled in a tug of war between the BJP and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The latter had recently sent a special emissary to Devi's Thakur family, requesting them not to meet the prime minister.
Jyotipriya Mallick, state food minister, said the BJP will not be able to break Matua unity in Thakurnagar, and that they will stand by Banerjee. "We are not at all disturbed over it. He [Modi] will not get any support," he said.
The Thakur family is a polarised one—one section supports the BJP, while the other is committed to Mamata Banerjee. One member of the family, Mamata Bala Thakur, is a Trinamool Congress MP. The pro-TMC sect denied BJP the permission to organise the prime minister's rally in the Thakur family ground. Some members of the family say that Devi wants to meet with Modi, while the other has issued a statement that, owing to sickness, she will not be able to do so. Mallick said the ground where BJP planned to organise the rally is reserved for an "ongoing festival".
The prime minister is expected to play up the citizenship amendment bill, explaining how it is going to help several lakh Matuas. PM Modi will also address a massive rally at Durgapur. A day later, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will hit the battle ground in West Bengal. He will hold four rallies between February 3 and February 5, at Balurghat, Raigunj, Purulia and Bankura.
On February 6, after Yogi finishes the first round of campaign, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan will hold two big rallies—one in Murshidabad and the other in Dum Dum (Kolkata). The first round will end with PM Modi's rally in Jalpaiguri.
