TMC, BJP jostle for SC, ST, refugee vote banks in Bengal ahead of Assembly polls in 2021

Announcing sops, having lunch at their homes in full media presence, promising prompt implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, garlanding the photograph of a tribal icon are some of the tactics adopted by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP in West Bengal to woo the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) voters ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections.

This became evident from the actions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah before and during the latter’s recent visit to Bengal. A day before Shah’s visit on November 5, Mamata allotted Rs. 10 crore for the Matua Development Board and Rs. 5 crore for the Namasudra Development Board. She also announced grants of Rs. 5 crore for the development of other tribal communities.

Classified as SC, Matuas belong to the Namasudra caste. They are Hindu refugees who migrated to West Bengal from erstwhile East Pakistan (modern-day Bangladesh) in large numbers following Partition. With a population of nearly 3 crore in Bengal the Matuas are the deciding factor in 21 Assembly constituencies in the state.

The Namasudras constitute about 17% of the SC population in Bengal. Out of the 1.8 crore SC population in the state about 99% are Hindus and BJP is keen on winning them over from the TMC. Having lunch at the residence of a Matua family was part of Shah’s strategy to wrest the vote bank from TMC. Since they form a major portion of the refugee population in Bengal Shah’s promise of quick implementation of the CAA and grant citizenship to refugees forms another part of the strategy. Out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, 10 are reserved for the SC and BJP won four of them in the last Lok Sabha elections.

The TMC supremo has come up with a counter-strategy to thwart BJP’s attempt to play the citizenship card using the CAA. On November 4, she announced that her government had given land rights to 3.50 lakh refugee families in the state since coming to power in 2011 and would be giving the same to 1.25 lakh refugee families in the near future which would serve as proof of citizenship for them.