SIR in Bengal: How BJP is planning to leverage CAA to reassure refugees

As the Election Commission (EC) prepares to launch a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls by November, the BJP in West Bengal is seeking to strategically leverage the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) both to reassure refugees fearing exclusion from voter lists and to counter political backlash over the ongoing revision process.

Sources within the state BJP said that the party, along with other Hindu right-wing groups, will organise roughly 700 CAA-application assistance camps across nine border districts by October 30.

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The initiative aims to allay anxieties in areas dominated by refugee communities, particularly the Matuas, who constitute the saffron party’s main support base in the state.

Special workshop

Detailed discussions were held at a special workshop organised by the party in Kolkata to chart strategies for managing potential fallout from the SIR process through the CAA, sources added.

According to attendees, the party resolved that “by October 30, each block in the border districts will conduct at least three CAA assistance camps,” with plans to gradually extend the programme to other blocks across the state, which has over 340 blocks in total.

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The workshop, attended by BJP national general secretaries BL Santosh and Sunil Bansal, along with senior state leaders and organisational cadres, explored how the CAA could be integrated into the SIR process.

In addition to training party workers and representatives of “apolitical” Hindu organisations to assist refugees with the citizenship application process, the party also crafted a political narrative to be communicated to refugee communities.

CAA as protective cover for Hindu refugees from Bangladesh

The message being conveyed is that those who apply for citizenship under the CAA will not have their names deleted from the electoral roll during the SIR process.

“There is no scope for confusion in SIR, though the Trinamool is attempting to create one. Those who are Indian citizens will have their names in the voter list. Those persecuted Hindus who came from Bangladesh will have to apply for citizenship under the CAA. If they apply and obtain citizenship, their names will appear in SIR as well,” Union minister and former BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar told party colleagues.

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The narrative being promoted portrays the CAA as a protective cover for Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, thereby serving as a reassurance mechanism in case any names are deleted from the voter lists during the SIR exercise.

Simultaneously, the BJP maintains that the SIR is necessary to cleanse “dead, fake voters, and infiltrators,” which it argues will primarily target illegal migrants.

BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya has publicly asserted that “If the BJP remains in power, not a single Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or Christian from Bangladesh will have their name removed from the list.”

He has also warned that the proper execution of SIR could lead to the removal of more than one crore “fake voters” in Bengal.

However, some concerning views remain within the BJP camp.

‘Religious cards’ issued

BJP MLA from Haringhata Asim Sarkar, claimed that Hindu BJP supporters, particularly the Matuas, who have been exercising their franchise for decades, are now facing deletion of their names under the pretext of voter list correction.

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The refugee communities themselves are not entirely convinced that the CAA will resolve their citizenship concerns.

This scepticism is evident from the lukewarm response to the “religious cards” issued by the BJP-backed All India Matua Mahasangha to facilitate CAA applications.

According to Mahasangha sources, only about two lakh such cards have been issued so far.

These cards are not citizenship certificates under the CAA but serve as facilitation documents to support applications made under the law. Their limited distribution offers some insight into CAA application trends, especially since official data on the number of applications filed remains opaque.

The Union Home Ministry recently informed an RTI applicant that the law and its rules do not mandate maintaining aggregate records of CAA applications.

Some sources claimed that around 25,000 people in West Bengal have applied for citizenship under the CAA.

TMC’s anti-SIR campaign rally

These figures are minuscule compared to the expectations of the Matua leadership, which had earlier projected that applications from their community alone would “cross one crore”.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is ramping up its anti-SIR campaign, alleging that the roll verification exercise is a cover to purge genuine voters and to implement the NRC through the back door.

The TMC plans a large rally in Kolkata in the second week of November, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to press this narrative.