Matua: ‘When you clean your house, few glasses break’: Subrata Thakur’s SIR defence in Matua heartland | India News

Subrata, grandson of PR Tagore and Matua matriarch Baroma Binapani Devi, explains how his family prioritized not only social status but also education and employment to ensure social upliftment. PR Tagore, incidentally, was the first barrister of the backward Namasudra community. TOI met Subrata at the sprawling Thakurbari campus in Gaighata, Gaighata, North 24 Parganas, where he is the sitting MLA and BJP Candidates for April 29 election.But this election is more complicated than previous elections for him and other BJP leaders in the Matua belt. Besides the harsh April sun, they are also facing political heat due to massive voter-list deletion under SIR.Subrata does not deny the discomfort. But he stressed that these were not genuine exclusions, saying most of the cases were linked to an earlier SIR in 2002. According to him, the problem was due to errors, missing uploads and political sabotage. The BJP, he said, is helping people fill Form 6 and restore their names.His message to the community is simple that don’t panic, you are safe in India, CAA is there, and BJP will get your name back. Then comes the line that could define BJP’s defense in this belt. “When you clean your house, sometimes a few glasses break,” he says. Subrata describes how the community was formed through partition, migration, refugee life and the long struggle for documentation. Even after seven decades of independence, the struggle is not completely over.The numbers explain why the anxiety is real. Across 142 assembly constituencies in the second phase, 12,87,622 voters were deleted during the judicial verdict. In North 24 Parganas, the district with the sharpest Matua concentration, 5,91,252 voters were placed under raiya and 3,25,666 were disqualified.Politically, the damage is more acute in the Bangaon belt. In Gaighata, the number of judicial-judicial removals in the second-stage list is 19,638. Out of 13,459 flagged cases in Baghdad, 5,890 were dropped, 15,303 out of a total of 2,63,142 voters in the constituency. TOI had earlier reported that 36,000 of those displaced in the four Matua-heavy constituencies are from the community. 20, 796 and 17,411 were deleted in Ranaghat North East and Ranaghat South dominated by Matua in Nadia.CAA, often offered as a lifeline, is more complicated on the ground. The Thakurbari campus aid centers had a deserted look. Some local voices say that applications are stuck in a bottleneck. Others say that many Matuas did not apply because doing so would make them appear not to be citizens of India already. Asked about the delay, Subrata said the Union Home Ministry was cross-checking the details.This is now BJP’s big pitch in Matua belt. Both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have returned to the Matua issue in recent days, promising citizenship, documents and security to refugee-Arita Hindu families. Prime Minister Modi called for his visit to Orakandi, Bangladesh, birthplace of Harichand Tagore, and promised citizenship for the Matua and Namasudra families. Amit Shah blamed Mamata Banerjee for deleting Matua’s name and accused the TMC of spreading fear.The TMC has turned the same issue into an allegation of betrayal. In Haringhata, Abhishek Banerjee accused the BJP of humiliating and depriving Matuas of citizenship and job promises. He said the BJP was shedding “crocodile tears” for the community and claimed that the TMC stood by the deleted voters from SIR form-fill-up kiosks to the Supreme Court.Mamata Banerjee framed SIR as a larger identity battle. Campaigning in Chakdah, Bangaon and Habra, he called the practice a “got-up game” and likened it to the sale of chaitra, saying some members of a family were on the roll and others were not. In Kolkata, wrapping up his campaign, he asked voters to “stand in line one more time” and use the ballot to teach the BJP a lesson.Subrata rejected the complaint. He says the fear is being created by the TMC, which is telling people that those who don’t have names will be kicked out. He also accused the Mamata Banerjee government of helping Bangladeshis by issuing fake documents.He then returned to Matua history. He speaks of a time when Matuas were deprived of dignity, treated as Chandals, pushed to the fringes of the village and denied the right to worship with respect. He invoked Harichand Tagore and Guruchand Tagore and said that the movement was built not only around faith but also around education, work and self-respect.That history is central to politics here. The Matuara, originally from the Namasudra caste and with roots in present-day Bangladesh, found both a spiritual center and a political anchor in Thakurnagar. Subrata says his grandfather PR Tagore ensured major improvements in infrastructure and education in the area when he was part of the Congress. But he blamed the non-extension of the Nehru-Liaquat Pact on those who later came out struggling for citizenship.In the last few elections, the BJP has tapped into this insecurity by promising the CAA. The results were clear. In 2021, the BJP won four Matua-heavy assembly seats in Bangaon division namely Gaighata, Bagdah, Bangaon North and Bangaon South. It also led in all four in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It also performed strongly in Matua-dominated pockets of Nadia.The Matuara, the second largest scheduled caste group in Bengal, are estimated to influence 50 to 70 assembly seats. But this time, the BJP is defending that base under pressure Subrata underplayed Mamata’s outreach to the community He says he came to Baroma before 2011 because he needed Matua votes, but Matua became ineligible for him after he mobilized Muslim support.Mood mixed on the ground. Some voters said that their names are intact and will be restored by the BJP. Others say one family member is deleted and the rest remain. Some still trust the BJP to solve the problem. Others say many of those affected were BJP supporters and anger over the deletion may now push a section towards the TMC. Just outside the campus, the mood in Thakurnagar was also sour.There is also a division of Thakurbari.Subrata Thakur is contesting for BJP in Gaighata. In nearby Bagdaha, the BJP has fielded Union Minister Shantanu Thakur’s wife Soma Thakur against TMC MLA Madhuparna Thakur, daughter of Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur. Shantanu Subrata’s younger brother. The once undivided Matua Mahasangh is now divided into factions, and Mamata Bala’s party has not supported the CAA for its followers.So it is not just BJP vs TMC. It is also a battle between the most influential Matua family in Bengal In Thakurnagar, it is not just a question of whether names come back Whether it restores trust with them. For years, the BJP told the Matuas that this would end their uncertainty. SIR brings that uncertainty back to the campaign.Because of that, the lines can be longer. “When you clean your house, sometimes a few glasses break.” Broken glass always leaves a mark. The answer to whether this leaves any mark on BJP’s fortunes will be known on May 4.