A Hindutva organisation based in West Bengal has announced to contest the coming Assembly elections, seeking votes to save Bengali Hindus.
The organisation, Hindu Samhati, which supported the BJP during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and campaigned in its favour on issues such as a nation-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), has launched a new political outfit called Jana Samhati.
Debtanu Bhattacharya, who was a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organiser before joining Hindu Samhati, which was founded in 2008, said the BJP was fooling the Hindus.
"In our assessment, the TMC has transformed into the Muslim League of the pre-Partition era and the BJP has become what the Congress, led by (Mahatma) Gandhi and (Jawaharlal) Nehru, used to be. The BJP is only interested in gaining power and not in protecting the cause of the Hindus," Bhattacharya said on Sunday.
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Hindu Samhati was founded by late RSS pracharak Tapan Ghosh in 2008.
Bhattacharya said that in their limited capacity they could not highlight the issues being faced by the Hindus of the country and therefore were focussing on highlighting the interests of the Hindus in West Bengal.
"The BJP is also fooling the Hindus on CAA. Amit Shah said that the CAA will be implemented after Covid-19 vaccination ends. This will take at least three years. It is evident that the BJP will be bringing back the issue of CAA either before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections or the 2026 Bengal elections," Bhattacharya said.
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They have demanded 75% reservation in jobs for Bengal's residents, steps to abolish reservation for Muslims under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, the abolition of Madrasah education system and the banning of Azaan using loudspeakers, among others.
They are ready to contest in more than 100 of the state's 294 Assembly seats, Bhattacharya said. "In their quest for gaining power, the BJP is even inducting Muslims with a background of engineering atrocities on Hindus," he said.
While in Bengal's politically polarised scene smaller outfits are not expected to make many gains, even a small change in the vote share may cause trouble for major parties in seats where close contests are expected.
The Shiv Sena, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the All India Majlis Ittehad e Muslimeen (AIMIM) have already announced their plan to contest the elections, while a new outfit launched by a Bengal cleric is in talks with the Left and the Congress for a seat-sharing arrangement.
Senior leaders of the BJP's Bengal unit did not want to comment on Hindu Samhati's move, saying they did not consider the outfit worthy of any importance or concern.
However, another BJP leader said, requesting anonymity, "If Hindu Samhati members start campaigning against us on the issue of CAA in areas dominated by Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, they may add to the confusion already being created by the TMC."
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A majority of Bengal's Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, especially the Dalit communities of Namasudra and the Matua, had welcomed the CAA and wanted its rules to be framed before the 2021 Bengal elections.
However, it appeared from Union home minister Amit Shah's speeches in the state in November and February that the CAA was not going to be implemented immediately.
