Bengal Matuas seek audience with Rahul Gandhi: Are they eyeing third option?

Caught in a political crossfire between the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over their unresolved identity struggles, Matuas — West Bengal’s second-largest Scheduled Caste (SC) group — now appear to be exploring a third alternative.

A community delegation met Congress Working Committee members and former state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury this week, requesting an audience with top leader Rahul Gandhi, Pradesh Congress spokesperson Chandan Ghosh Choudhury told The Federal.

Disclosing the development, Adhir on Friday (August 29) told reporters that the Matua representatives had expressed their interest in joining Rahul’s ongoing ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar.

Also read: BJP plays Matua Dalit identity card, snubs RSS’s unified Hindu rhetoric

'They want to join the Congress'

“They want to participate in the yatra in large numbers and submit a memorandum to Rahul Gandhi. They have also expressed a desire to join the party. I have conveyed their message to the central leadership, and a meeting will be arranged either in Bihar or New Delhi,” he said.

Members from various Matua organisations, including the two major factions of the All-India Matua Mahasangha, were part of the eight-member delegation that called on the senior Congress leader.

The Mahasangha, which functions as an apex body of the sect, is currently divided along political lines, with one faction aligning with the TMC and the other supporting the BJP.

The BJP-backed faction is controlled by Union Minister Shantanu Thakur and his elder brother Subrata Thakur, who is a state MLA.

Their aunt, TMC Rajya Sabha member Mamata Bala Thakur, heads the other faction.

Matua infighting leaves community flustered

Many within the community are growing increasingly frustrated with the constant infighting within the Thakur family, which traces its lineage to the sect’s founder, Harichand Thakur, a 19th-century social reformer and religious leader.

Also read: Bengal’s Matuas wait and watch, refuse to take CAA bait as poll battle hots up

The community leaders who met Chowdhury reportedly expressed a sense of betrayal by both political factions, saying that neither the BJP nor the TMC has shown a genuine commitment to resolving their long-standing citizenship dilemma.

With citizenship promises delayed, identity issues unresolved, and inter-state crackdowns intensifying, a growing section of the Matua community is now turning to Rahul Gandhi seeking a decisive intervention, claimed Ghosh Choudhury.

BJP, TMC woo Matuas

The BJP has courted the Matuas since 2019 by promising to address their identity concerns through the quick implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed later in the same year. Despite the CAA being notified in early 2024, there is no clarity as to who qualifies under it, what documentation is required, and what happens to those who don’t qualify.

The TMC, on the other hand, has been campaigning against taking citizenship under the CAA, arguing that the members of the community need not have to worry about citizenship, as most of them are already enrolled in the electoral rolls and possess other identity documents.

Also read: Matuas to get citizenship, Mamata can’t stop CAA implementation: Shah

But it has failed to come up with any viable alternative to resolve the community’s core demand of citizenship regularisation.

The Matua community plays a decisive role in at least 30 Assembly seats in Bengal, which will head to polls next year, and wields some clout in another 50.

The vulnerability of the politically significant community, which constitutes 17.4 per cent of the state’s SC population, increased following the recent crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi migrants, which led to incidents of harassment in states such as Maharashtra, where community members were either detained or labelled as Bangladeshi infiltrators.

The BJP, meanwhile, has reiterated its stance that members of the Matua community should apply for citizenship under the CAA to avoid future harassment, and has been organising camps to assist them with the application process.

Also read: Deactivating Aadhaar of Matuas Centre’s political game: Mamata

The feud within the Thakur family has even cast shadows over these camps, which have, in any case, failed to elicit much response so far.

On August 24, Shantanu and Subrata were embroiled in a bitter conflict after the former's loyalists held a camp at the Natmandir in Thakurnagar, the community's nerve centre, to issue religious certificates required for the CAA application.

Subrata, the MLA, accused his younger brother of running a “dalal raj” within the Mahasangha and misappropriating funds. Shantanu counter-accused his elder brother of plotting to join the TMC.

Their mother, Chhabirani Thakur, sided with Subrata, while their father, Manjul Krishna Thakur, supported Shantanu. Incidentally, their aunt, Mamata Bala Thakur from the TMC played a mediator.

Crack in Thakur family

The deepening rift within the Thakur family is pushing a section of the Matua community to break away from the family’s hold and its associated political affiliations, creating a space for a potential third alternative to emerge.

Their tilt towards the Congress was first noticed when Ranajit Mukherjee, a senior member of the Pradesh Congress’s political affairs committee, was seen participating as an invitee in a rally organised by the SC Federation in Matua-dominated Habra in North 24-Parganas district of Bengal on August 24.

The rally was held to demand the simplification of the proposed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.

Mukherjee claims that Rahul Gandhi’s “consistent push for Dalit rights” is gaining traction with the Matua community.

The resistance put up by Subrata Thakur when Congress North 24-Parganas (Rural) district president Indrani Dutta Chatterjee went to address the crowd at the Matua temple in Thakurnagar on Thursday (28) demonstrates that the political rivals are no longer taking the Grand-Old Party lightly in the Matua belt.

“Have faith in Rahul Gandhi. Just as he has taken up the fight to protect the citizens of this country, that fight is also for the Matua community. Trust us, we have not come here to indulge in electoral politics but to speak against politics inside the temple,” she told the gathering.

“We will come again, and even if we are attacked, we will continue to fight against this polluted politics.”

Meanwhile, a group of BJP supporters led by party leader Rakesh Singh attacked the Pradesh Congress headquarters in Kolkata on Friday over the alleged abusive words used by a Congress supporter against Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’ in Bihar.