The evening was cooler than usual after showers earlier in the day. The conversation was heating up among the devotees sitting in the temple premises. “Can you vote this time? Voter deletion has been rampant. In our booth, 100 names got deleted,” asked a middle-aged man in dhoti to a man sitting next to him.
He promptly replied: “Well, I can cast my vote. My name is there in the voter list. Is your name there? They even deleted the names of voters who had been casting their votes here for the last 10 years. You know they deleted the names of Trinamool supporters only. It is only hurting the reputation of BJP.”
SIR exercise
Their conversation about the ongoing SIR exercise in electoral rolls, which has sparked massive resentment among the Matua community in Thakurnagar, broke off as puja bells and drums began ringing at the Harichand Thakur mandir first and then at the Guruchand Thakur mandir.
Harichand Thakur, born into a Namasudra family in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in the early nineteenth century was the founder of the Matua sect for a socio-religious reform movement. His son Guruchand Thakur intensified the anti-caste movement. Matuas migrated to India and formed a large colony in Thakurnagar, in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district bordering Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1948, a year after the Partition.
Matua community members migrated in different phases during the communal clashes in Bangladesh to Thakurnagar, their heartland located about 90 km from Kolkata. However, a sizeable number are yet to get Indian citizenship.
“Our community members are politically divided between BJP and Trinamool Congress. But both BJP and Trinamool are playing with our sentiments. The saffron party is trying to lure Matuas by promising to grant citizenship through the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). However, so far I have not witnessed a single case where a person belonging to our community got citizenship through CAA. Trinamool is criticising the BJP for the deletion of a large number of voters from voters list during the SIR, but the party is not serious about our members getting citizenship,” said 70-year-old Bikash Bala, who was born here and whose father was one of the migrants from Bangladesh.
The Matuas now form West Bengal’s second largest Scheduled Castes (SCs) population. They are mostly concentrated in North and South 24 Parganas and Nadia, apart from bordering districts such as Howrah, Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur and Malda. The community constitutes around 17 per cent of the total vote bank in the State.
BJP stronghold
The Gaighata constituency, under which Thakurnagar falls, is generally considered a BJP stronghold as it is the backyard of party MP and Matua leader Shantanu Thakur. Gaighata BJP MLA and prominent Matua leader Subrata Thakur is the older brother of Shantanu Thakur. Subrata is seeking re-election and is contesting against TMC’s Narottam Biswas in the Assembly elections scheduled for April 29.
“For the huge deletion of names during the SIR exercise, BJP is facing some resentment. Trinamool can draw heart from it. This time there will be a tight contest. Anyone can win from Gaighata constituency and the wining margin will be very thin,” said Bholanath Biswas, a voter belonging to the constituency.
Published on April 6, 2026