KOLKATA: Close on the heels of the exclusion of names of 40 lakh people of Assam from the final draft of National Register of Citizenship (NRC), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday played a masterstroke to consolidate crucial Dalit votes for 2019 Lok Sabha elections by agreeing to form Namasudra Development Board within a month's time to assuage the fears of West Bengal's largest Dalit community Namasudras, many of whom are post-1971 migrants from Bangladesh.
The decision was taken after representatives of All India Namasudra Vikas Parishad (AINVP), who have been spearheading a movement across West Bengal against NRC over the past one week by forming blockades at railway and road junctions and holding up Assam-bound trains, met the Chief Minister at state secretariat Nabanna on Monday.
Some 17 ethnic development boards have been formed by Mamata Banerjee in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts for the different communities of the hills. While the government states that the boards are formed for development of different communities according to their unique needs and problems, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha President Bimal Gurung says that the boards work to expand TMC's political base in the hills.
During a one-and-half-hour long meeting with Mamata Banerjee on Monday, AINVP working president Mukul Chandra Bairagya presented the problems faced by the Namasudra community in securing Scheduled Caste certificates as many of them are post-1971 migrants from Bangladesh who left their homes fleeing religious persecution.
Accordingly, the West Bengal Chief Minister agreed to the AINVP demand that Backward Classes Welfare Department will not ask for old documents for issuing caste certificates, a state government official aware of the proceedings of the meeting revealed.
However, the Chief Minister did not commit on AINVP's another demand for inducting a Namasudra minister in the state cabinet. AINVP argued that though there were many Namasudra MLAs from TMC, there is not a single cabinet minister from the community. The NRC issue has increased the closeness of the ruling party with the Namasudras, whom the BJP was trying to woo as the Namasudras are a unified voting bloc and influence voting patterns in several districts of south Bengal.
The BJP's stance on NRC and vows to implement it in West Bengal has increased the distance of the Namasudras with the saffron party as many Namasudras are recent migrants from Bangladesh and fear their names might not appear in NRC list if it is implemented in West Bengal.
The state BJP leadership and eastern zone VHP bureau clarified that the NRC in West Bengal would be targeted against Bangladeshi-origin Muslims and not Hindus who fled religious persecution in the country to seek refuge in India. However, the nail in the coffin was put after Namasudra religious leader referred to as 'Matua Maa' and Bangaon MP Mamata Thakur was allegedly manhandled by Silchar Police in BJP-ruled Assam on August 2.