The BJP's most prominent Matua face, MP Shantanu Thakur, who claimed last week that the CAA would be implemented "within a week", has said it was "a slip of tongue", renewing a sense of dejection in many sections of the community over the Centre's delay in implementing the 2019 Act.

The BJP MP from Bongaon and junior Union ports and shipping minister, somersaulted at a community congregation in Bagdah, North 24-Parganas, on Saturday night, claiming that he had meant to say that the rules for the Act would be framed within seven days.

The All India Matua Mahasangha president, purportedly admonished internally by the party for his previous statement, rectified his "error" of January 28, when at a rally in Nischintapur of Kulpi in South 24-Parganas, he said that the CAA would be implemented within a week "not only in Bengal but also across the country".

"Those among you who came to India after 1971 need citizenship to secure to future of the new generations. Once the BJP government implements CAA, no government will be ever able to evict you from the country. I can assure you that in the next seven days, not only in Bengal but also across the country, the CAA will be implemented," Thakur, who leads the pro-BJP faction of the Matua community, said.

Six days after his announcement in Kulpi, he amended his statement in Bagdah, claiming it was a mistake.

"I actually wanted to say that the process of framing the citizenship rules will be completed within a week.... But by a slip of tongue, I said the CAA will be implemented within a week. I didn't mean it," Thakur said on Saturday in Kuthibari village, Bagdah.

He, however, repeated that the framing of the citizenship rules was in its final stages and legal provisions would come into effect "very soon". "The CAA provisions will be implemented very soon.... This is cent per cent guaranteed," he said.

Uncertainty over the CAA’s future, combined with continuous efforts of the Trinamul and other political and apolitical bodies to call the BJP's apparent bluff has worked to a certain extent, and ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Matuas seem to be a divided house.

Trinamul reacted sharply to Thakur's "slip of tongue" admission. "It was not a slip of tongue. They are habitual, compulsive liars," Trinamul state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.

Joint secretary of the pro-Trinamul faction of the All India Matua Mahasangha, Prasenjit Biswas, said: “Shantanu Thakur and the BJP should now stop bluffing about the CAA...."