Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress accused the BJP of a diversionary tactic through the Narendra Modi government’s September 1 tweak in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and vowed to resist the saffron regime’s contentious citizenship matrix while the Congress and the CPM in the state tore into the BJP over alleged attempts at a demographic shift.

The Bengal BJP, predictably, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi government for his government’s decision to relax the norms for persecuted non-Muslims from the neighbouring countries.

The Union home ministry issued the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, on September 1, allowing persecuted non-Muslim minorities from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, who had entered India before December 31 last year, would be allowed to stay even without valid documents.

On Wednesday, the state leadership of both the Congress and the CPM saw in the Modi government’s decision an attempt to ensure eventual citizenship — and therefore voting rights — to more non-Muslim refugees, especially in the border states, thereby changing the demography in their constituencies and making them electorally more favourable to the BJP.

It is no secret that most Muslims and other minorities do not vote the Right-wing BJP, with its Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan priorities.

“Of course this is a naked attempt to change the demography in places the BJP does not find itself electorally comfortable. This is exactly what the BJP falsely accuses parties in the national Opposition of doing with Muslims from the neighbouring nations,” said the Congress’s chief spokesperson for Bengal, Soumya Aich Roy.

“This also enables, for now, the foul game of competitive communalism that the BJP and Trinamool play in Bengal — in keeping with their secret entente — as the demographic shift is unlikely to be adequately achieved by 2026 state polls. Till the BJP is fully confident of coming to power here, it wants to keep Mamata Banerjee as a placeholder, so that the truly non-fascist, secular-liberal forces can’t advance,” he added.

In a virtual echo, CPM state secretary Md Salim said the decision to extend the cut-off date for those persecuted on religious grounds to apply for Indian citizenship was a carrot dangled with an eye on political gain and comes a day after the Centre armed itself with the detention stick under the new Immigration and Foreigners’ Act.

“Being part of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the citizenship matrix, where we had stalled the process but they (NDA government) later got it passed, I am aware that the entire effort is a culmination of BJP’s agenda of stigmatising people with derogatory terms such as Bangladeshi infiltrators and termites. Now they have expanded the attack by terming any Bengali-speaking person as Bangladeshi,” he said.

Salim said the spirit of the CAA says those applying for Indian citizenship have to prove that the person has been a victim of religious persecution. If they want to give one-time amnesty to non-Muslim foreigners, then they should not have dubbed those people “termites”, Salim said, referring to Union home minister Amit Shah’s remark in 2021.

“Therefore, the Centre has unleashed this fresh ploy to hoodwink citizenship aspirants, who in a few instances were seen chasing BJP leaders for not delivering on their promise. This is an effort to pacify their anger before the crucial polls,” he said.

“Going by the various theories propounded by the RSS regarding population growth, this is an effort at demographic change. During my tenure as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on citizenship matrix I had given my dissent to the move stating that CAA was aimed at fulfilling what the RSS states is the ‘unfinished task of Partition’. The RSS was peeved that the migration — complete exchange of people on the basis of religion — did not happen during Partition,” he said.

“The RSS still feels that minorities need to be uprooted to complete the task of Partition...,” he said.

Fundamentalist cousins of the RSS in Pakistan and Bangladesh also think similarly,” Salim went on. “Therefore, the agenda of fundamentalist groups in these three countries is to ensure an exchange of population on the basis of religion.... In the case of Bengal and Assam, the added agenda of the RSS is to use the CAA to offset the critical role of Muslims in participatory democracy in these two states. If the CAA is read together with SIR, the motive is to make one section doubtful voters and accord legitimacy to another solely from the RSS-BJP lens of religious bias.”

Trinamool said it remains fully committed to oppose the CAA.

“Our leaders Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee have repeatedly said that the CAA and the NRC will not be implemented in Bengal.This is yet another diversionary tactic employed by the BJP. They are also trying to bring the NRC through the backdoor, using the dubious special intensive revision of electoral rolls. We willcontinue to oppose these,” said Bengal industry minister Shashi Panja.

The BJP’s Bengal unit chief Samik Bhattacharya hailed the decision and accused Trinamool of solely depending on illegal Muslim immigrants to win polls.

“Torture on Hindus has resumed in Bangladesh. People are leaving everything behind to seek shelter here. Who else but the BJP will stand up for them? The Union home ministry order will automatically change the format of the CAA application form,” he said, adding he would not be able to speak on the legalities, but the change would be done.