About 2 lakh Matua cards issued for CAA facilitation

Kolkata: Around two lakh ‘religious cards’ have been issued in recent months by the All India Matua Mahasangh, the umbrella organisation of the Matuas, from Bongaon's Thakurnagar Thakurbari, to support Matua community members to apply for citizenship under Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

With the SIR alarm, Bongaon of North 24 Parganas, is witness to a huge number of Matuas queuing up from all across the state for ‘Matua’ membership cards and religious certificates issued from Matua headquarter of Thakurnagar, the residence of Matua Mahasangh chief and Union Minister Santanu Thakur.

“The religious certificate from the Mahasangh is an essential document to prove that they are Hindus. A huge number of Matuas from all across the state are coming to Thakurbari and the cards are issued immediately,” All India Matua Mahasangha general secretary Mahitosh Baidya told ET.


Till date, around 1.5-2 lakh religious cards have been issued. After the CAA notification and amid the SIR alarm, the issuance of religious certificates have risen to around two lakh in the recent past.

The Matua sect, which was founded by Harichand Thakur, commands the loyalty of approximately 1.75 crore people, a critical population in Bangaon, Barasat, Ranaghat, Krishnanagar, and Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituencies. Matuas came to West Bengal in the 1950s and after the formation of Bangladesh, primarily due to religious persecution.

The Namasudras, which also include the Matuas, are the most significant SC community of the state.

The All India Matua Mahasangh and BJP leadership are working overtime to conduct special CAA camps to create awareness and help people with the application process, people in the know informed. They are conducting awareness camps in all seven North Bengal districts, Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, South and North 24 Parganas which have dominant Matua population. “Similar camps are being organised in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi where Matua population is present,” Baidya told ET.

CAA rules were notified by the Centre in 2024 before the Lok Sabha polls in March and the government started granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan who arrived in India before December 31, 2014.