The deaths of Bangladeshi Hindus, either by suicide or due to natural causes, during the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal have added a twist to the row between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The first three victims since October 28 – a day after the SIR was announced by the Election Commission of India – were all Hindus who came from Bangladesh, their families said. As more cases were reported in the following weeks, TMC targeted BJP saying panic among citizens was claiming lives.
TMC held SIR responsible for around 20 deaths until November 17. At least six of the deceased were Muslims. Two more people survived suicide bids on October 29 and November 17.
The state BJP unit’s spokesperson Debjit Sarkar, however, argued that TMC is linking all deaths to the SIR in the run-up to the 2026 assembly polls to create a fear psychosis among Hindu refugees from Bangladesh because they supported BJP in the 2021 assembly and the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“Millions of Hindus came here to escape religious persecution after India’s Partition in 1947, after the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war that created Bangladesh and also in later years. None will be declared infiltrator. These people are protected by law,” Sarkar said.
Sarkar, a lawyer, said Bangladeshi non-Muslims are eligible for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which the Parliament passed in 2019, if they entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
“Moreover, the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) order, 2025, was issued by the Union home ministry on September 1 this year. It clearly says Bangladeshi non-Muslims who entered India on or before December 31, 2024 to escape religious persecution can stay even if they don’t have any valid document or passport,” Sarkar added.
The BJP has set up camps in the districts, especially in those bordering Bangladesh, to help people fill up the SIR enumeration forms or, to apply for citizenship under CAA.
TMC chairperson and chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, has opposed CAA saying it is unconstitutional to link citizenship to faith in a secular country.
The BJP’s campaign on the Union laws is being countered by TMC which claims the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) order, 2025 is only a diversionary tactic to extend the deadline for CAA. The chief minister has also said that CAA will follow the National Register of Citizens which left more than a million Hindus in detention camps in Assam in 2013-14.
“Our party continues to oppose CAA and NRC. We will not allow even a single legitimate voter to be dropped from the electoral roll because of this SIR,” Bengal’s commerce and industries minister Shashi Panja said.
Caught in this tussle, many people who came from across the 2216 km-long border do not seem convinced by laws and political assurances.
Ratan Chandra Biswas, a Bangladeshi national who claimed to have entered India in 2001 and currently lives in the Swarupnagar community block of North 24 Parganas, blamed the SIR for the crisis people like him are facing.
“BJP leaders welcomed the SIR saying it would detect at least 10 million illegal Muslim infiltrators living in Bengal as voters. How is SIR linked to a specific religion? My name is missing from the 2002 electoral roll, the benchmark for the ongoing SIR. I will not only lose my voting right but may be declared an illegal migrant as well,” Biswas said.
Not just upper caste Hindus like Biswas are faced with uncertainties.
The situation has turned tricky for the Dalit Matua community whose members came in large numbers from Bangladesh as refugees after 1947 and 1971. Included in the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, Matuas influence election results in around 74 of Bengal’s 294 assembly seats, according to surveys done by TMC and BJP.
Members of the Thakur family from Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district’s Bongaon are direct descendants of Sri Harichand Thakur, who founded the Matua community in mid-1800 as a separate Hindu religious sect.
The saffron camp has focussed on the Matuas since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and several BJP central leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, have visited Thakurnagar during polls campaigns. In return, the Matuas helped BJP win seats in several districts.
In August, the TMC accused a faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha led by BJP’s two-time Bongaon MP and Union minister of state for shipping Shantanu Thakur of issuing the organisation’s identity cards and religion certificate to Bangladeshi migrants who entered India after 2015 and hence, are not eligible for citizenship under CAA.
After the Union home ministry passed the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) order on September 1 the other faction of the Mahasangha led by TMC Rajya Sabha member and Shantanu Thakur’s aunt Mamata Bala Thakur started a fresh movement demanding “unconditional citizenship” for all Matuas.
Twenty one of Mamata Bala Thakur’s followers started a hunger agitation at Thakurnagar, the Mahasangha’s headquarters, on November 5 and nine of them were hospitalised till November 15 when the agitation was suspended.
Sukumar Roy, a Matua from Bongaon, said many Hindus living in the region came from Bangladesh after the 2002 electoral roll revision.
“Many, like me, crossed the border after 2002. We have cast our votes all these years but now we are living in fear. Applying for citizenship under CAA now means voluntarily declaring ourselves aliens. Mamata Bala Thakur has raised the right demand,” Roy said.
The TMC Rajya Sabha member said the agitation will intensify in the coming days.
“Millions of people voted after 2002. Whose vote did Narendra Modi get when he became Prime Minister for the first time in 2014? We will start a bigger agitation in Kolkata from December 28,” Mamata Bala Thakur said.
With no MLA in Bengal since 2021, even the Congress is making attempts to reach out to the Matuas. The party’s former state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury visited the hunger agitation site on November 13 and urged the Union home minister to help the Matuas.
“Belonging to the deprived section of society, and whose numbers run into millions, the plight of the Matua community in West Bengal is indeed too sad, and a misery to see and hear about. Over the years, since their migration to the country to escape the wrath of extreme persecution by means of physical torture, detention, loot and rape in present day Bangladesh, Matuas have exercised their franchise in the country, served as elected representatives in the state legislature and Parliament, been a part of the mainstream population, and owed allegiance to different political ideologies and parties,” Chowdhury wrote to Amit Shah on November 15.
“I sincerely and earnestly plead that the Matua community be exempted from the “rigors” of SIR,” Chowdhury added, requesting Shah to take steps so that the Matuas can cast their votes and live as Indian citizens.
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