CAA TURNS BENGAL VOTERS' FOCUS FROM SANDESHKHALI

FORCED to demonstrate that the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act are indeed workable, Shantanu Thakur from the Matua community, a junior minister in the Narendra Modi regime, has declared his intent of applying for citizenship under the new rules.

- SHIKHA MUKERJEE

His impetuous declaration proves that even the strongest advocates of citizenship applications under the new rules understand there are flaws in the process.

As a minister in the union government, why Thakur has to apply to be a citizen is a question that is raising a laugh in West Bengal. His move does reveal the issue for thousands of Matua community members in the state who, even without the citizenship application confirming their status, are employed as government servants, defence personnel and in the paramilitary services. Those not employed in government services and living in India are citizens, just as Thakur is.

For Mamata Banerjee, Thakur's confession is a bonus to the gift the Modi regime gave her by notifying the CAA rules. Having declared that people who came across from Bangladesh in 1971 were citizens with equal rights and that there would be no detention camps in West Bengal, the confusion within the Matua community over CAA is confirmation that Banerjee has been right all along and the Modi regime was intent on dividing the population by sowing doubts about the identity of settlers from across the border.

The BJP's hopes of sucking up Hindu votes along the Bangladesh border by raising the bogey of citizenship may not yield the advantage it calculated would flow from the notification. The loss of opportunity in its failure to stoke the fire of communal polarisation will affect at least half a dozen Lok Sabha constituencies where the party could have expected to do well following the CAA "masterstroke" (sic).