KOLKATA: As the head or matriarch of West Bengal’s electorally significant Hindu refugee community, Binapani Devi, known to her minions and legions of followers as Boroma, drew political suitors in election time at her abode in Thakurnagar for a slice of the Matua pie. Now, following her demise last month, it’s an open contest for the Matua stronghold — Bongaon.
Earlier, it was a straight face-off between the Trinamool and the Left parties when it came to tapping into this significant votebank in the North 24 Parganas district, with sops and promises galore. However, after cutting its teeth into the political landscape of West Bengal, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now keen to unleash a charm offensive on the Matuas in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in a bid to extend its political footprint in the state.
True to its intent, the BJP sent its biggest poster boy, Narendra Modi, to win over the Matuas. As Modi bent to seek the blessings of the Matua matriarch in February, it conveyed a direct and unambiguous message to the rival camps that the BJP had joined the bandwagon to woo the 7-million strong community.
Keen to wrest the Matua votebank from Trinamool, the BJP has fielded a member of Boroma’s family from the Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency. Matuas have traditionally been the key to deciding the electoral fate of this seat.
Modi’s visit to Boroma’s Thakurnagar residence, in many ways, laid the groundwork for the BJP to make inroads into the Trinamool stronghold. The sight of Modi sitting on the floor, next to Boroma, and seeking her blessings was enough to send the message loud and clear that the BJP was out to breach the Trinamool bastion. Mamatabala Thakur, Boroma’s dauther-in-law and the sitting Trinamool MP from Bongaon, is up against Shantanu Thakur, son of Manjul Krishna Thakur, her brother-in-law.
Manjul Krishna, the youngest of the matriarch’s two sons, was a member of the Mamata Banerjee cabinet before he switched to the saffron camp in 2015, splitting the Matua clan down the middle.Leaders across party lines conceded that the Matuas, who identify themselves as Namashudra Dalit immigrants from Bangladesh taking up residence in the area after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, hold the key to electoral outcomes in as many 70 Assembly seats, which make up 7 Lok Sabha constituencies on the Indo-Bangla border.
The Matuas came into the state’s political spotlight after the crushing defeat of the sitting CPI(M) MLA in the 2006 state elections. The defeat was largely blamed on a significant Matua vote swing towards the Trinamool. Since then, Boroma’s residence, which also serves as the sect’s headquarters, came to witness regular high-profile political visits by heavyweights in the Left and Trinamool.However, eyeing the Bongaon seat this time, the BJP top guns, too, joined the list of high profile visitors to the Matua household this year.
Boroma’s demise last month set the stage for a split in the Matua first family along political lines. “Earlier, political leaders of all hues would meet Boroma in the hope of drawing the Matua votes. With the Boroma gone now, there’s no one in the Thakur clan who has the standing in the community to issue a whip to all members to vote en-bloc for a particular political party. So, it will be a tighter contest this time around, as the constituency also has a sizeable contingent of minority voters,” a local CPI(M) leader said.
At a rally in February in Thakurnagar, which is barely a few kilometres from the Matua headquarters, Modi spoke highly of the Centre’s Citizenship Amendment Bill. However, he had to cut short his speech as a near-stampede broke out at the venue.
Playing down BJP’s inroads into Bongaon, Trinamool’s district president Jyotipriya Mullick, said the BJP candidate would be blown away by the development storm unleashed by the Mamata government.
“Under Mamata Banerjee’s leadership, people here have seen development of the kind they couldn’t even think of even eight years ago. The BJP is trying to divide the society along the lines of religion and people in Bengal will never accept it,” Mullick said.
Boroma’s elder son Kapil Krishna Thakur won the Bongoan Lok Sabha seat on a Trinamool ticket in 2014. Following his death in 2015, Trinamool fielded his widow Mamatabala in the bypoll. She won by a landslide margin.
