KOLKATA: In an apparent bid to rob the BJP of its key vote bank in West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress is giving a push to a national-level meeting of the Scheduled Castes.
The All India Scheduled Caste Development Council (SCDC) is likely to hold a national conference in May at Kalyani, Nadia district.
The move is politically significant as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to be the main speaker at the conference.
The Scheduled Caste Matua community has been a major contributor to the saffron camp’s electoral gains in West Bengal in the last two elections, including the 2021 Assembly polls when the TMC had scored impressive victories in most of the BJP strongholds.
The Matuas belong to a Hindu religious sect comprising refugees from Bangladesh.
The BJP leadership had promised them citizenship by implementing the contentious CAA. The Matuas and their elected representatives, including Union minister Shantanu Thakur, had expressed their discontent in public over the Centre not implementing the CAA.
At least 10,000 representatives from different parts of the country are likely to participate in the conference, which is said to be aimed at creating a mass opinion among the SCs against the BJP.
Mukul Bairagya, chairman of the SCDC, claimed more than two lakh people would turn up on the day of Mamata Banerjee’s speech.
“The assembly of Scheduled Castes will take a decision that only Mamata Banerjee’s TMC can show an alternate path against the BJP’s oppression,” said Bairagya.
The TMC is seeing the conference as a big blow to BJP.
“The refugees from Bangladesh and others realised that BJP hoodwinked them by making a false promise of citizenship. Mamata Banerjee was always against the CAA but she said the people included in the Act were already citizens of India,” said a senior TMC leader.