Mamata Banerjee on Friday attacked the BJP’s alleged attempts to mislead Hindu refugees, such as the Matuas in Bengal, with assurances of citizenship through an amended law, questioning the need for people who have lived as citizens for so long to suddenly prove their citizenship.
The Bengal chief minister said that as long as she was alive, the Narendra Modi government’s citizenship thrusts would not be implemented in the state.
“Citizenship means having your name on the electoral roll, possessing papers such as driving licence, bank documents…. Why will the whole nation be made to queue up to furnish documents to prove their citizenship? (Furnishing) documents of their deceased ancestors makes no sense,” Mamata said at Naihati Utsav in North 24-Parganas.
Districts such as North 24-Parganas and adjoining Nadia have not only sizeable Matua populations, but also large numbers of other Hindu refugees from neighbouring Bangladesh.
The BJP, with the promise of amending the citizenship law, won the Matua-dominated Lok Sabha seats of Bongaon and Ranaghat by defeating Trinamul this summer. Matuas alone have the power to swing outcomes in at least 74 of the 294 Assembly seats in Bengal.
“I would urge refugees, particularly the people belonging to the Matua community — you are being misled. Refugees and Matuas, tell me whether you voted or not. If you have voted and elected a government, how can they suddenly come up to give you citizenship?” Mamata asked.
“Did we vote to form a government so we would then have to stand in a queue to obtain citizenship? Never stand in a queue that robs you of your right, rather stand in those queues that ensure your rights,” she added.
The chief minister said her government had already put the National Population Register process on hold in Bengal and that she found it ironic that the very people the BJP wooed for votes would now be made to queue up and prove citizenship with documentary evidence of deceased forefathers.
Mamata Banerjee on Friday uploaded the poem on Facebook. Trinamul sources said she had penned the poem, in Bengali and English Telegraph picture
Many believe the NPR is the first step towards a nationwide National Register of Citizens.
“We did not realise the intention behind the NPR initially. Then we found out how it is linked to (a purported drive to) sieve out bona fide citizens. We immediately stopped the exercise in Bengal. We will never allow anything that endangers the people,” she said.
Mamata said the Centre was trying to create divisions even among Hindus, especially the backward caste communities. “Matuas, Namashudras, Rajbanshi, Kamtapur, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes… you name it. They thrive on divisions,” she said.
“We regularised 94 refugee colonies in the state. There are a few more such colonies on private land or on central government land. On repeated occasions we have appealed to the Centre to issue rights to those residents and regularise the right of refugees to stay there. But they did nothing. Later, we officially recognised all this land. This official recognition means that all the refugees are genuine citizens,” Mamata added.
