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New Delhi, Nov 7 (IANS) While political rhetoric has spread panic in West Bengal over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which is reportedly leading to deaths by suicide, the state’s largest Scheduled Caste (SC) group welcomed the process, saying it will identify “outsiders” they claim are encroaching on their land.
Rajbangshis, at over 18 per cent, are the largest SC group in West Bengal, with an estimated population of about half a crore in the districts of Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Malda and Murshidabad.
Bangshibadan Barman, a faction leader of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association (GCPA), said, “We support the SIR process; it will help in identifying fake voters, dead people, people who have migrated and others.”
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Barman supported the Trinamool Congress candidate from the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat, where he called on his followers to support Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party and claimed that the Trinamool Congress chief has done a lot for the Rajbangshi community.
However, such political alliance did not motivate him to go along with the strong resistance of Trinamool Congress towards SIR. It was the community’s concerns about the encroachment of their lands by “outsiders” that still remained the main focus.
The GCPA is demanding a separate state for Rajbangshis, comprising seven districts of North Bengal besides three in Assam. The Burman faction is considered the most prominent among other groups demanding statehood in the region and enjoys considerable support among the local people.
West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are wooing Rajbangshi, where the state’s main opposition party had won the region in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
BJP’s Nisith Pramanik then won the Cooch Behar parliamentary seat by a margin of over 54 thousand votes and became the Union Minister of State for Home, as well as Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports between 2021 and 2024.
However, in 2024, allegiance wavered amid growing concerns over the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) among Rajbangshis, who feared that through the law illegal occupiers could secure legal status over areas they consider their own.
Riding on the wave of doubt, Trinamool Congress candidate from Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat, Jagdish Chandra Barma Basunia, defeated Pramanik by over 39,000 votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
And in that election, of the seven assembly constituencies that constitute the Cooch Behar parliamentary constituency, TMC led in four. Whereas in the 2021 assembly elections, the ruling party of the state could win only two of these seats.
In other parliamentary constituencies in North Bengal, where the Rajbangshi community has influence – such as Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling – the BJP won, but by much smaller margins.
It was only in Raiganj where the saffron party won, increasing its margin over its nearest Trinamool Congress rival by over 7,600 votes compared to 2019.
Despite their differences, on the SIR rollout in West Bengal, BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Nagendra Ray, who leads the other faction of the GCPA, echoed Barman’s statement.
“Of course, we welcome the SIR; it will identify fake voters and infiltrators,” said Ray, who claims to be a descendant of the former ruler of Cooch Behar and is popularly addressed as Anant ‘Maharaj’ in the area.
“I would say something is better than nothing (accepting the state’s demand),” he said. While both leaders demand the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which they believe will help identify “outsiders” or “illegal encroachers” on their land, they are opposed to the CAA.
–IANS
JB/PGH