West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Not just Muslims, SIR purge hits Matua Hindus too, TMC bets on anti-BJP anger

Bangaon (West Bengal): As Madhuparna Thakur walks through Dhulani with her hands folded, Sushil Biswas makes his way through the crowd around her. “Ma”, the elderly villager affectionately draws the attention of the 26-year-old Trinamool Congress candidate, and tells her, “How can we vote for you this time? They have struck us off the list.”

Biswas and 10 others of his family are among more than 100 villagers in the tiny hamlet in Bagda in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, who lost the right to vote, thanks to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.

 “My son is a soldier of the Indian Army. He took a short leave and came home a few weeks ago, only to attend the SIR hearing. He submitted all the documents, just as the rest of the family and I did,” says Biswas, adding, “But they have deleted all of us from the rolls, including my son, who joined the army to protect the country.” 

“It is the Bharatiya Janata Party that got you all deleted from the electoral rolls,” Madhuparna, a member of the State’s outgoing Legislative Assembly, says Biswas. “Our leader, Mamata Banerjee, is fighting for all of you. The TMC will not rest till your voting rights are restored.”

Biswas and the majority of his neighbours in Dhulani are Matuas — a religious sect born out of a reformist movement, which Harichand Thakur led with some 'lower' caste Hindus, who were then looked down upon as untouchables by the 'upper' caste Hindus of undivided Bengal.

The Matuas grew in number in West Bengal, as many of them migrated from the erstwhile East Pakistan after the Partition in 1947 and continued to do so even after the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. They now account for nearly 17% of the population of West Bengal. They can now sway the poll results in about 45 of the 294 Assembly constituencies in the State, including Bagda and nearby Bangaon Uttar, Bangaon Dakshin, Gaighata, Swarupnagar and Habra. 

No wonder both TMC and its principal challenger, the Bharatiya Janata Party, have been competing with each other to win the hearts of Matuas, and, in the process, vertically split Thakur Bari — the residence of the descendants of Harichand Thakur, the founder of the sect, and the spiritual nerve centre of the community in India. One faction is headed by Madhuparna’s mother, Mamata Bala Thakur, a member of the TMC in the Rajya Sabha, while Shantanu Thakur, Union Minister and the BJP’s member in the Lok Sabha, leads the other.

Haradhan Mandal,76, has been living in Bagda ever since he came to India from Bangladesh in 1964. “I have land records dating back to 1988. I have been voting for a long time, but they struck me off the rolls this time,” he says and then asks: “We are not Muslims, we are Matuas. Then, why are they putting our citizenship in question by taking away our voting rights?” His daughter-in-law, Shikha Mandal, adds: “The BJP said that the SIR was aimed at detecting and driving out Muslims who had illegally migrated from Bangladesh to India and settled in West Bengal. But they are striking people like us off the rolls.”

Madhuparna hopes to reap the political dividends out of the simmering anger among the Matuas to beat the BJP’s bet in Bagda — Soma Thakur, her sister-in-law and the wife of Shantanu. Local TMC veterans, however, appear to be a bit cautious, as they note that while the removal of thousands of Matuas from the electoral rolls will undoubtedly hurt the BJP the most, their own party will not go unscathed.   

Shantanu’s brother, Subrata Thakur, who is also a member of the outgoing Assembly, is also seeking re-election on the BJP ticket from Gaighata.

“The SIR of the electoral rolls may have caused some problems for the Matuas, but all these are temporary and will be resolved. The voting rights of all will be restored,” says Soma.

Her husband, Shantanu, has been trying to allay the fears of the Matuas since the beginning of the roll revision in West Bengal. He has been advising the Matuas, who had been struck off the electoral rolls, to take advantage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government enacted to “protect the Hindu refugees coming to India from Bangladesh and other countries”. He opened a centre in Thakur Bari to help Matuas apply for citizenship through the CAA.

“BJP leaders have been trying to mislead the Matuas into the CAA trap. The Matuas have been living in this country for decades. Why do they need to apply for citizenship under the CAA, and thus bring their nationality under scrutiny now?” Mamata Bala asks. “Most of the Matuas do not have documents required for the CAA process”.

Lakshmirani Lashkar is one of the voters struck off the list at Chandpara in Gaighata. “In our polling booth, 186 voters were placed in the ‘under adjudication’ category. We have resubmitted all our documents. But now they have deleted the names of 183, including mine, from the rolls,” she says, joining others in a protest on the Jessore Road, which links North Kolkata with Jessore in Bangladesh.

“They have taken away my right to vote. They can next deport me and my family from India,” says Tarun Sarkar, 80, another disenfranchised Matua.