Mamata woos refugee voters with free land deed promise

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on Thursday, tried to woo the refugee colony voters, including the Matuas by offering free land deeds that would be another stepping stone to firmly establish their citizenship rights.

Kolkata: BJP has been trying to toy with the refugee colony votes in West Bengal for quite some time to make a dent in this vote bank. The special focus of the saffron camp has been the Matua voters, a refugee scheduled caste community originally from the-then East Bengal and now Bangladesh, as the Matua community contributes for sizable vote chunks in different pockets of West Bengal.

Now, to foil that attempt of the saffron camp with the sentiments of the refugee voters, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on Thursday tried to woo the refugee colony voters, including the Matuas by offering free land deeds that would be another stepping stone to firmly establish their citizenship rights.

She made this announcement on Thursday, at a special program at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, where she distributed land deeds among the refugees.

“The Matua community people had been victims of narrow-minded politics for long. They will also receive free land deeds now. They will be able to set up their own houses on that land. If necessary the state government will also provide them with houses,” the chief minister said.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister, without naming anyone, launched scathing attacks against the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath.

“Some people appear on the television posing as saints before the polls. They just vanish after the polls. There are deliberate attempts to change the history of the country. The minorities and backward people are being attacked every day. Even there is a deliberate attempt to misinterpret Hindu ideology,” the chief minister said.

She also took a veiled dig at the Congress. "Some migratory birds pop up before the polls," she said without naming Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

Political observers feel that the chief minister has given a clear message of her political stand of maintaining equal distance from BJP and Congress.