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KOLKATA: The West Bengal unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday urged Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, especially the members of the Dalit Matua community, to immediately apply for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
“The CAA has fulfilled your long-standing demand for citizenship. I urge all eligible members of the Matua and Hindu refugee communities to fill out the CAA forms as soon as possible. Don’t be misled by misinformation,” BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said at a press conference.
“Every Hindu and Matua community refugee will become citizens,” he said ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Taherpur in Nadia district bordering Bangladesh.
Bhattacharya’s outreach comes amid allegations by members of the Matua community and non-Dalit Hindu refugees that many of them were left out of the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral roll in the state.
At Taherpur, the venue of a rally to be addressed by the prime minister on Saturday morning, the local Ranaghat Lok Sabha MP Jagannath Sarkar said PM Modi would ensure citizenship for all Matuas.
“Modi hain toh mumkin hai (Anything is possible if Modi is there). We are confident that all Matuas will get their citizenship rights soon,” said Sarkar, who won the seat in 2019 and 2024.
The ruling Trinamool Congress countered the BJP, saying the PM was coming for damage control.
A separate sect formed by social reformer Sri Harichand Thakur, Matuas are classified as scheduled caste who largely migrated from Bangladesh during 1947 and 1971. Matuas influence election results in around 74 of Bengal’s 294 assembly seats and are the biggest catchment for the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
TMC state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said millions of Matuas and other Hindu refugees hadn’t been enrolled during the SIR. “The BJP made tall promises to these people and now PM Modi is coming to control the damage,” Majumdar said.
The CAA promises expedited citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014.
According to the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) order, 2025, issued by the Union home ministry on September 1 this year, members of minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan — Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — who entered India before December 31, 2024 to escape religious persecution could stay in the country even if they don’t have any valid document or passport.
Since the BJP had pitched SIR as an exercise to detect and delete the names of illegal Muslim infiltrators which would lead to their deportation, TMC has targeted the BJP, saying the SIR has also victimised Hindu refugees.
