In sixth phase of West Bengal polls today, an acid test for CAA in Matua bastions

Over one crore voters will decide the political fate of 306 candidates competing in 43 assembly constituencies in the sixth phase of West Bengal polls today. One of the biggest contests will be fought in the bastions of the Matuas, an SC refugee community who are predominantly migrants from Bangladesh to West Bengal. With citizenship for refugees having emerged as one of the poll planks of the BJP in its battle for Bengal, their verdict will prove to be an acid test for the party that had been weighing the pros and cons before implementing a new law enacted for the purpose.

Both the Matua strongholds of Bongaon and Krishnanagar go to polls today. The TMC and the BJP have pitched hard to gain the community's confidence, as they make up a large chunk of the 17 assembly segments going to polls in this phase in North 24 Parganas district and nine seats in Nadia.

How will Matuas impact the polls?

The Matuas, backward caste communities who originally hail from Bangladesh, faced religious persecution in their homeland. Around 2 crore Matuas flooded into West Bengal after partition and even after the 1971 Bangladesh war. Many of the Matuas even today do not have citizenship in West Bengal. They have voting rights and other documentary evidence, but they lack full citizenship, which has resulted in land ownership issues. 

The community has significant presence in districts like Nadia and North 24 Parganas, and can turn the election in over 30 assembly seats—from places like Bongaon, Bagda, Ashok Nagar, Bhatpara, Gaighata, Kalyani, Haringhata, Ranaghat and Krishnagunj. Originally, the Matuas stood strongly with the Left parties, but defected in favour of the TMC after the latter appeased them with land rights and official recognition. Currently, the BJP—with promises of full citizenship in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)—have bitten into a large chunk of the votebank. 

Will CAA impact the votes?

Two years back, The BJP's promise to implement the CAA also paid off and the saffron party won all Matua-dominated Lok Sabha seats in 2019 polls and took the lead in almost 35 assembly segments. Apart from the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), two other aspects (identity politics and regional development) have also surfaced as decisive factors this election, as bitter rivals TMC and the BJP go all out to woo the community with several promises aimed at solving local problems.

Big contests in this phase

Prominent names in the sixth phase of the assembly polls include BJP's national vice president Mukul Roy, TMC ministers Jyotipriyo Mallick and Chandrima Bhattacharya and CPI(M) leader Tanmay Bhattacharya. The political fate of film director Raj Chakraborty and actor Koushani Mukherjee, who are the TMC's candidates from the Barrackpore and the Krishnanagar North constituencies respectively, will also be decided in this phase. Voting will be held at 14,480 polling stations in the 43 assembly segments of the four districts.

This phase will witness stiff competition between the ruling Trinamool Congress and its main rival BJP.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief J.P. Nadda and Bollywood star Mithun Chakraborty led the campaign of the saffron party, which has fortified into TMC's main challenger in this election. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee spearheaded the TMC campaign along with her nephew and party's youth wing chief Abhishek Banerjee.

The Election Commission has curtailed daily campaign hours and extended the "silence period" from 48 hours to 72 hours in each of the remaining three phases of the assembly polls in view of the Cooch Behar violence and the rising COVID-19 cases in the state.

-Inputs from PTI