KOLKATA: The All India Matua Mahasangha has asked the Centre to amend the rules of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) so that recognised religious organisations can certify the authenticity of applicants given the difficulties faced by a large number of refugees from Bangladesh who don’t have official identity documents from that country, Matua community leaders said.

“It has been proposed (to the Centre) that recognised religious organisations having followers be given the authority to certify the authenticity of applicants who do not have documents issued by the Bangladesh government,” a Mahasangha member said on condition of anonymity.

“The same rules should apply to Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, Parsi and Sikh organisations as long as they are recognised and have followers. Priests or monks heading a place of worship, such as a temple, cannot issue such certificates,” he added.

A religious sect formed by social reformer Sri Harichand Thakur (1812-1878) who is worshipped in temples as an incarnate of Vishnu, Matuas are a part of the large Namasudra community that has been living in fear and anticipation, depending on who they listen to, ever since the Centre notified the CAA rules and launched a portal on March 11.

Hindus account for 70.54 % of Bengal’s population of 91.3 million, according to the last decadal census held in 2011. Most of the Hindus who came as refugees from East Pakistan after 1947 and from Bangladesh after the 1971 Liberation War are Dalits and Namasudras, studies have shown.

West Bengal’s SC population stood at 21.4 million, or 23.51 % of the total population in 2011.

A large section of the Dalit and Namasudra voters helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win several Lok Sabha seats in 2019 because the party promised to enforce CAA. But the saffron camp’s vote share came down in the 2021 assembly polls, prompting some to link the decline to the delay in enforcing the Act.

The rules notified by the Centre require applicants to provide official documentation to establish that they were indeed citizens of the neighbouring country that was covered under the law.

On March 20, BJP legislator and CAA activist Asim Sarkar, who hails from a family of refugees, told HT that Matuas were being told not to apply for citizenship till the Lok Sabha polls were over.

“Let the polls be over. Some modifications must be made in the CAA Rules in regard to the paperwork. Also, there are many who entered India after December 31, 2014, the cut-off date,” Sarkar, who is contesting the Burdwan East Lok Sabha seat, said.

Passed by Parliament in 2019, CAA offers citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015 to escape religious persecution.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson and chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been a sharp critic of the law because it links citizenship to religion, has alleged that filing a request for citizenship under the law will imply that the applicant is an illegal immigrant. In her election rallies, Banerjee says that by filling up the form on the CAA portal, people will voluntarily declare themselves to be illegal immigrants and be liable for action.

The portal seeks signed affidavits from applicants along with documents issued by the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. These include an education certificate, a copy of passport, land and tenancy records and birth certificates of parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.

Applicants get options to choose from a list of nine foreign and 20 Indian documents to prove their background.

The format of the affidavit is also uploaded on the portal. The last line says: “I am aware that it is an offence under the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make a false representation or concealment of any material fact and that if it is found later that wrong information has been furnished by me in this Affidavit and/ or in the Eligibility Certificate, I shall be deprived of my Indian citizenship abinitio.”

Union minister of state for shipping, Shantanu Thakur, who heads the All India Matua Mahasangha, urged members of the organisation on Wednesday to apply for citizenship without fear.

“You won’t have to upload any document right now. Keep those spaces blank. We will take care of these at the time of physical verification. This is a law that grants citizenship. It doesn’t take away citizenship. I will apply too although I am a citizen,” he said at Thakurnagar, the Mahasangha’s headquarters in North 24 Parganas district’s Bongaon. Thakur won the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat for BJP in 2019.

Among the seats with pockets of Dalit-Namasudra population that BJP won in 2019 are Bongaon, Hooghly, Cooch Behar, Malda North, Ranaghat, Burdwan-Durgapur, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj.

Similar seats that TMC won are Basirhat, Joynagar, Barasat, Mathurapur, Serampore, Arambagh, Tamluk, Contai, Burdwan East and Krishnanagar.

TMC and Congress leaders accused Thakur and the BJP of using CAA to hoodwink Dalit and Namasudra voters.

“False promises on CAA don’t impress voters any more. Nobody can hoodwink them. It seems Thakur has lost his head because of the heat wave,” TMC spokesperson Santanu Sen said.

Congress spokesperson Saumya Aich Roy said, “Thakur is saying for the second time that he will apply for citizenship. Does that mean we have a Union minister who is not even an Indian citizen?”