The All India Matua Mahasangha, which is politically aligned to the BJP, has decided to hold a meeting at Behala in Calcutta on Friday.
Mahasangha chief and BJP’s Bongaon MP Santanu Thakur will address the meeting.
“Several meetings are being held in many districts to garner support for the public rally that Union home minister Amit Shah is scheduled to address at Thakurnagar on January 30. The first such meeting in Calcutta will be held on Friday,” said Mukutmani Adhikari, a member of the Mahasangha’s central committee.
Sources said the other reason behind holding the meeting in Calcutta was to prevent Trinamul from wooing the Matuas.
“We are aware that Mamata Banerjee’s reassurance that everyone is naturally an Indian citizen might work against us. That is why we don’t want any section of our community to be left out and hence, we have targeted the Matuas of Calcutta,” said a central committee member of the Mahasangha.
Matuas are a community of lower-caste Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh, spread in several parts of North 24-Parganas and Nadia districts and some parts in north Bengal.
A survey done by the Mahasangha has shown that in the 17 Assembly seats spread in and around Calcutta, there is an average SC-ST-OBC population of 5 per cent. Moreover, in Assembly seats like Kasba, Jadavpur, Behala East, Behala West and Tollygunje, several wards have a Matua population of over 30 per cent.
