Brewing Dalit ‘rebellion’ in Bengal may dent BJP’s prospects in UP

An influential Dalit community’s ire against the BJP in Bengal over the non-implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) may pinch the saffron party in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh where it’s already battling an Other Backward Classes (OBC) backlash.

The apex body of the state’s second largest Scheduled Caste community, the All India Matua Mahasangha (AIMM) has threatened to launch a movement across the state seeking immediate implementation of the CAA, a promise made by the BJP ahead of the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections.

Also read: BJP stares at Matua backlash over delay in implementing CAA

Matuas are a Hindu refugee community that trace their ancestry to the erstwhile East Bengal. They migrated to India during the partition and after the creation of Bangladesh.

The AIMM for long had been demanding an amendment to the Citizenship Act of 2003, which it claimed had put a question mark on their Indian citizenship by introducing the notion of “illegal migrant.”

The law defines an illegal migrant as one who has entered India without a valid passport or other travel documents or overstayed his/her stay in the country after legally entering the country.

The 2003 law further made “illegal immigrants” ineligible for citizenship by registration or by naturalisation and also prohibited citizenship by birth for children born in India if either parent is an “illegal immigrant.”

As the Act did not make any distinction between “illegal migrants” and “bona fide refugees,” a section of the community strongly felt the need for a citizenship shield.

To allay their concern, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had promised to amend the act to grant them citizenship. Riding the wave of its citizenship promise, the party put up its best ever electoral performance in the state winning 18 of the 42 parliamentary seats, securing a whopping 40.7 per cent votes, an upward swing of 22.76 per cent.

The BJP-led government enacted the CAA in December 2019 and got the presidential assent a day after the enactment, but the new law is yet to be implemented because the rules under the amended Act are yet to be framed by the Union government.

Failing to frame the rules within six months of presidential nod, the Union Home Ministry has already extended the deadline five times, the latest being on January 9 this year, sparking the resentment among Matuas.

Representatives of the Mahasangha will soon seek appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to demand immediate implementation of the CAA, said an AIMM member and BJP MLA Subrata Thakur.

Apart from putting pressure on the BJP top leadership, the Mahasangha in a meeting on Saturday decided to launch an agitation soon to further press its demand.  It was supposed to hold a demonstration at the national capital on January 7. The programme was postponed due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

At Saturday’s meeting, it was decided to resume the stir as soon as possible.

“We will soon start the agitation afresh in West Bengal, New Delhi and in other parts of the country,” said Balaram Sikdar, a senior AIMM leader.

Union minister of state for ports and shipping and BJP MP from Bongaon Shantanu Thakur and at least four saffron party legislators, belonging to the Matua community are spearheading the demand for the immediate implementation of the CAA, saying they are under pressure from their supporters to resume the agitation.

The BJP’s Matua leaders are also unhappy for not getting, what they say adequate representation for the community in the new state committee formed in December last year. Many non-Matua disgruntled leaders of the party, including senior leaders Joy Prakash Majumdar, Sayantan Basu and Ritesh Tiwari who were dropped from the state committee have now rallied behind Shantanu Thakur.

BJP state leaders in public, however, tried to downplay the development saying the problem would be sorted out within the party. State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the party’s organisational mechanism is robust enough to address the dissension. He also affirmed that the BJP is committed to implementing the CAA.

“The CAA implementation is one of the fundamental demands of the BJP. The party’s ideological standpoint will be diluted if it compromises on the CAA. So there is no question of backing out,” he said.

Many senior BJP leaders in private said that a Dalit agitation against the party ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections could have a far reaching consequence whose impact could be felt beyond the boundary of the state.

“We have sought the party central leadership’s intervention to resolves the crisis before it snowballs into a full-blown Dalit rebellion against the BJP. An agitation against the party by Dalit Matua community in Delhi is the last thing the party will want ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections,” a senior BJP leader said seeking anonymity.

Two senior OBC ministers and at least five MLAs have left the BJP recently accusing the party led government in Uttar Pradesh of being indifferent to backward castes and Dalits.

Against this backdrop, the Samajwadi Party, which has roped in West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee to campaign for it in the Uttar Pradesh elections, is hoping that the Matua rebellion will further alienate the backward communities and Dalits from the saffron party.

Also read: Why Trinamool rebuffing Congress unity overtures looks good for BJP

“In this age of social media and internet, Dalit resentment against BJP in Bengal will definitely get some resonation among their brethren elsewhere in the country, including Uttar Pradesh,” said SP vice-president Kiranmay Nanda.

As an emissary of SP president Akhilesh Yadav, Nanda on Tuesday (January 18) held an hour-long meeting with Banerjee in Kolkata to chalk out her campaign plan for the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll.

Banerjee will hold virtual campaigns along with Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on February 8. She will also address a joint press conference with the SP leader and attend a virtual rally in Varanasi later that month.

The election to 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7.