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

It is about karma and dharma. Subrata Thakur is far more at ease when asked about the principles of the Matua community and how its history evolved from the days of Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur.Subrata, grandson of P R Thakur and Matua matriarch Baroma Binapani Devi, explains how his family prioritised not only social dignity but also education and employability to ensure the community’s rise. P R Thakur, incidentally, was the first barrister from the disadvantaged Namasudra community. TOI caught up with Subrata at the sprawling Thakurbari campus in Thakurnagar, Gaighata, in North 24 Parganas, where he is the sitting MLA and BJP candidate for the April 29 election.But this election is trickier than the earlier ones for him and other BJP leaders in the Matua belt. Along with the harsh April sun, they are facing the political heat from mass voter-list deletions under SIR.Subrata does not deny the unease. But he insists these are not genuine exclusions, saying most cases have linkages to the earlier SIR in 2002. According to him, the problem was caused by glitches, missing uploads and political sabotage. The BJP, he says, is helping people fill Form 6 and get their names restored.His message to the community is simple that do not panic, you are safe in India, CAA is there, and the BJP will get your names back.Then comes the line that may define the BJP’s defence in this belt.“When you clean your house, sometimes a few glasses get broken,” he says. Subrata describes how the community was shaped by Partition, migration, refugee life and the long struggle for documents. Even after seven decades since Independence, that struggle has not fully ended.The numbers explain why the anxiety is real. Across the 142 Assembly seats voting in the second phase, 12,87,622 electors were deleted during judicial adjudication. In North 24 Parganas, the district with the sharpest Matua concentration, 5,91,252 voters were placed under adjudication and 3,25,666 were declared ineligible.In the Bongaon belt, the damage is politically sharper. In Gaighata, the second-phase tally puts judicial-adjudication deletions at 19,638. Bagdah saw 5,890 exclusions out of 13,459 flagged cases, with total deletions in the constituency touching 15,303 from an electorate of 2,63,142. TOI has earlier reported that 36,000 of those removed in the four Matua-heavy constituencies belong to the community. In Nadia, Matua dominated Ranaghat North East and Ranaghat South saw 20, 796 and 17,411 deletions.CAA, often offered as a lifeline, is more complicated on the ground. The help centres on the Thakurbari campus wore a desolate look. Some local voices say applications are stuck in a bottleneck. Others say many Matuas have not applied because doing so would feel like an admission that they are not already citizens of India.When asked about the delay, Subrata says the Union home ministry is doing detailed cross-checking.This is now the BJP’s larger pitch in the Matua belt. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have both returned to the Matua question in recent days, promising citizenship, documents and security to refugee-origin Hindu families. PM Modi invoked his visit to Orakandi in Bangladesh, the birthplace of Harichand Thakur, and promised citizenship for Matua and Namasudra families. Amit Shah has blamed Mamata Banerjee for the deletion of Matua names and accused TMC of spreading fear.TMC has turned the same issue into a betrayal charge. At Haringhata, Abhishek Banerjee accused BJP of humiliating and depriving Matuas after promising them citizenship and jobs. He said BJP was shedding “crocodile tears” for the community and claimed TMC had stood by deleted voters, from SIR form-fill-up kiosks to the Supreme Court.Mamata Banerjee has framed SIR as a larger identity battle. On the campaign trail in Chakdah, Bongaon and Habra, she called the exercise a “got-up game” and compared it to a Chaitra sale, saying some members of a family were on the rolls while others were not. In Kolkata, while wrapping up her campaign, she asked voters to “stand in a line once more” and use the ballot to teach BJP a lesson.Subrata rejects the charge. He says the fear is being manufactured by TMC, which is telling people that those whose names are missing will be driven away. He also accuses the Mamata Banerjee government of helping Bangladeshis with fake documents.He then returns to Matua history. He speaks of a time when Matuas were denied dignity, treated as Chandals, pushed to the margins of villages and denied the right to worship with respect. He invokes Harichand Thakur and Guruchand Thakur, saying the movement was built not only around faith but also around education, work and self-respect.That history is central to the politics here. The Matuas, largely drawn from the Namasudra caste and with roots in present-day Bangladesh, found in Thakurnagar both a spiritual centre and a political anchor. Subrata says his grandfather P R Thakur, while being part of Congress, ensured major improvement in infrastructure and education in the area. But he blames the non-extension of the Nehru-Liaquat pact for leaving those who came later struggling for citizenship.Over the last few elections, BJP has tapped into this insecurity through the promise of CAA. The result was clear. In 2021, BJP swept the four Matua-heavy Assembly seats in the Bongaon subdivision which are Gaighata, Bagdah, Bongaon North and Bongaon South. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election too, it led in all four. It also performed strongly in Matua-dominated pockets of Nadia.The Matuas, the second-largest Scheduled Caste group in Bengal, are estimated to influence 50 to 70 Assembly seats. But this time, BJP is defending that base under pressure.Subrata underplays Mamata’s outreach to the community. He says she came to Baroma before 2011 because she needed Matua votes, but after consolidating Muslim support, the Matuas became dispensable to her.On the ground, the mood is mixed. Some voters say their names are intact and BJP will recover. Others say one family member has been deleted while the rest remain. Some still trust BJP to fix the problem. Others say many of those affected were BJP supporters, and anger over deletion may now push a section towards TMC. The mood in Thakurnagar just outside the campus also felt sombre.There is also the Thakurbari split.In Gaighata, Subrata Thakur is contesting for BJP. In nearby Bagdah, BJP has fielded Soma Thakur, wife of Union minister Shantanu Thakur, against sitting TMC MLA Madhuparna Thakur, daughter of Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur. Shantanu is Subrata’s younger brother. The once-undivided Matua Mahasangha is now split into factions, and Mamata Bala’s faction has not endorsed CAA for its followers.So this is not only BJP versus TMC. It is also a battle within Bengal’s most influential Matua family.In Thakurnagar, the question is not only whether the names return. It is whether trust returns with them.For years, BJP told Matuas it would end their uncertainty. SIR has brought that uncertainty back into the campaign.That is why Subrata’s line may linger. “When you clean your house, sometimes a few glasses get broken.” Broken glass always leaves a mark. Whether it leaves a scar on BJP’s fortunes will be answered on May 4.