All India Matua Mahasangh president and Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur has announced a hunger strike from November 5, demanding the immediate cancellation of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the pro-Trinamool faction of the Mahasangh held in Thakurnagar on Saturday.

The hunger strike will be staged in front of the house of the late Matua matriarch Binapani Devi, popularly known as Boroma,
in Thakurnagar.

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

The Matuas, a community of Hindu refugees, have a strong presence in around 40 Assembly seats across the districts bordering Bangladesh such as North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas and Nadia. In recent years, a bulk of the community has sided with
the BJP.

Initial mapping of electorates in the Bongaon subdivision (North 24-Parganas) indicates that around names of about 55 per cent voters of the present electoral roll were not part of the benchmark
2002 voter list.

As names of their parents are also not there in the 2002 list, they fear deletion
as voters.

Addressing a press conference after Saturday’s meeting, Mamatabala voiced strong opposition to the SIR process, saying it “posed a serious threat to the political and citizenship rights of Matuas”.

Speaking to reporters, the Trinamool MP said: “The booth-level mapping indicates that a large number of our community members and those who came from Bangladesh are likely to be dropped from the voters’ list due to the SIR. The SIR has put us in a crisis by robbing us of our voting rights and raising doubts about our identity as Indian nationals. Our aim is to protect the lives and rights of Matuas and others.”

Sources in the pro-Trinamool faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha, led by Thakur, claimed that nearly 60 per cent of voters in the existing rolls — mostly belonging to the Matua and Hindu communities who migrated from Bangladesh after 2000 — could face deletion under the SIR.

In a written statement, Mamatabala also said: “We apprehend that the SIR would rob the voting rights of... backward communities like the Matuas and other downtrodden groups. The rights ensured by the Indian Constitution are now being robbed by the BJP-led government through an organised conspiracy. To protest this and demand immediate cancellation of the SIR, we have decided to begin a fast-unto-death”

Her faction has also demanded that no voter, who has been listed in the electoral rolls, and has exercised voting rights in the past two decades be removed from the list.

It further called for the withdrawal of the requirement for voters to submit documents proving their ancestral links to Bangladesh to ensure citizenship through the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.

Reacting to the announcement of hunger strike, Sukhendu Gayen, the general secretary of the pro-BJP faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha led by Union minister Shantanu Thakur, claimed Mamatabala was not popular.

“People are not with Mamatabala Thakur. It is true that some Matua voters may be excluded due to the SIR, which is why we have advised everyone to apply for citizenship under the CAA,” Gayen said.