NRC, foreigners’ tag deciding factors to get Bengali Hindu votes in Barpeta

Guwahati: The growing resentment over the death of a Bengali Hindu (Amrit Das) in a detention camp meant to keep declared foreigners is likely to determine who the three lakh-odd Bengali voters in

Barpeta

parliamentary constituency will vote for this time. The minority-dominated constituency of 16,76,854 voters will go to the polls on April 23.

Das, a resident of Barpeta Road in Barpeta district, was lodged in the Goalpara detention camp in 2017 after he was declared a foreigner on May 20 the same year. Since then, he has been languishing in the camp. He developed some health complications and died in hospital on April 6 this year.

In 2014, a large chunk of Bengali voters went with BJP’s Chandra Mohan Patowary, who lost to All India United Democratic Front’s (AIUDF) Sirajuddin Ajmal, by a margin of 42,341 votes. As BJP and AGP fought separately, the division in non-minority votes was one of the factors attributed to the defeat of the saffron party in Barpeta in 2014. This time, BJP and AGP are in alliance and AGP’s Kumar Deepak Das is in the fray.

While the alliance has increased the prospects of consolidating non-minority votes, the prevailing anger among Bengali voters over Das’s death and large-scale exclusion of community members from the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) is likely to impact the voting pattern of the community this time. The question that is being asked by many is whether AGP will be able to garner Bengali votes in its favour.

Many Hindu Bengalis in the state see the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as a way to get respite from the problem of doubtful “D” voter and foreigner tags. While BJP is in favour of the bill, AGP is against it despite being in alliance. This time, a candidate from the Bengali community, Shantanu Mukherjee, is contesting on a Bharatiya Gana Parishad (BJP) ticket from the seat. This is likely to divide the votes cast by people of the community.

“If Das was really a foreigner, why his body was handed over to his family members in Barpeta road after his death and not to the country from where he had come? This shows that Das was an Indian. Is this not a sham in the name of detecting foreigners? People have understood it very well,” said Mukherjee.

Although a candidate from the Hindu Bengali community also contested in the 2014 polls, the anger among the community was not as apparent as it is now. Hence, a large chunk of the votes from the community went to BJP.


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