At least 21 devotees belonging to the pro-Trinamool Congress faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha have begun a fast-unto-death in protest against the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in Bengal.

The hunger strike commenced in front of the “Matri Mandir”, abode of the departed Matua matriarch Binapani Devi, popularly known as Boro Maa, in Thakurnagar, the spiritual seat of the community in North 24-Parganas.

The fasting devotees said their protest would continue until a representative from the Centre assured them of a rollback of the SIR exercise and guaranteed the inclusion of all those who had cast their votes in recent elections.

The BJP-aligned faction of the Mahasangha, led by Bongaon MP Shantanu Thakur, dismissed the protest as a “plot” to “incite tension” by involving “Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas” who, he claimed, “are neither Indian voters nor Matua devotees”.

The decision to launch the hunger strike was announced on November 1 by All India Matua Mahasangha president and Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur, following a meeting of the pro-Trinamool faction in Thakurnagar on Saturday.

The organisation alleged that the SIR process could lead to a large-scale exclusion of Matua voters — a move it said the community “will not tolerate.”

Preliminary mapping of the electorate in Bongaon subdivision has indicated that names of around 55 per cent of current voters in the Matua belt were not found in the benchmark 2002 roll. The absence of their parents’ names from the 2002 roll has raised mass fears that many voters could be struck off during the 2025 revision.

Although Mamatabala could not join the fast due to prior commitments as a member of a parliamentary standing committee, she inaugurated the protest virtually on Wednesday and voiced her strong opposition to the SIR process. “It poses a serious threat to the political and citizenship rights of the Matuas,” she said.

Members of the Mahasangha’s Gosain Parishad, a pro-Trinamool wing led by secretary Ranjit Byne, are reportedly among those who began the fast.

Speaking to reporters, Byne said: “The cut-off year of 2002 for voter enrolment is being used in the SIR to rob voting rights from people who have elected governments and ministers over the past several years. If their votes were legal then, how can they now become non-entities? The Centre must allow unconditional citizenship and voting rights to all who entered India before December 31, 2024. Even if such people lack documents, their names should not be deleted from the final roll during the SIR.”

Matua leaders said that more community members are expected to join the hunger strike in the coming days.

“If the Centre does not accept our demand for an unconditional rollback of the SIR process, the agitation will intensify. The government will be held responsible for the worsening health of the fasting devotees,” said Narottam Biswas, organising secretary of the Mahasangha.

Sukhen Choudhary, general secretary of the organisation and a known Trinamool sympathiser, alleged that the BJP-led Centre, “under the guise of the Election Commission”, was trying to brand “sons of the soil as Bangladeshis” to deprive them of their voting rights. “This attempt to discredit genuine Indian citizens is reprehensible,” he said.

Choudhary added: “The BJP has been dangling the citizenship carrot through the CAA to regain these voters’ trust. But such assurances are hollow, since proving religious persecution or residence in Bangladesh is nearly impossible for most of these people after long years ofmigration.”

Union minister and head of the pro-BJP faction of the Mahasangha, Thakur, rejected the protest outright. “No real Matua devotees joined the hunger strike today,” he told reporters.

“Those participating are Bangladeshi Muslims, fake voters and the Rohingya disguised as Matuas. No representative from the Centre will entertain them. This is a well-scripted political drama by Trinamool Congress, which fears losing its fake support base — the same base that helped the party retain power in Bengal....”