TMC’s silence on caste census raises questions about its intentions

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress, has maintained a staunch silence over the release of the caste census by the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government recently.

The silence of West Bengal’s ruling party in this matter, despite the other constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc like the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) welcoming the move, has kept political observers wondering about the Trinamool Congress tackling the caste census issue.

Not a single Trinamool Congress leader was willing to come ahead to give a reaction in the matter unless the chief minister Mamata Banerjee or the party’s national general Abhishek Banerjee outline any specific instruction or guideline on the party’s stand in the matter.

“Only the chief minister or the national general secretary will decide and comment on this matter and till that time none of us are supposed to comment on the issue.

However, as hinted at by the chief minister she is having some objections to the caste census over apprehensions that it might lead to demands of self-governance in certain areas and hence lead to divisions among the people,” said a member of the state cabinet on condition of anonymity.

However, he admitted that the general perception within the Trinamool Congress is that while the caste census might work for parties having a strong base in the cow- belt where caste-based politics is predominant, the same might not work in favour of the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, where caste-based politics is virtually non-existent.

At the same, party insiders admit there is also an apprehension that any caste census in West Bengal might actually help the BJP to gain mileage in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, considering that the saffron camp had been nurturing the issue of the Matuas, a scheduled caste refugee community from neighbouring Bangladesh, who have a substantial presence in a number of constituencies in certain districts.

In fact, recall political observers, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP candidates won from the two Matua- dominated constituencies of Bangaon in North 24 Parganas and Ranaghat in Nadia district. Political observers feel that there might be two reasons behind this apparent apathy of the state’s ruling party towards nipping the issue in the bud.

The first reason might be the increasing allegations of issuance of false caste certificates in the state.

Those allegations surfaced in a major way during the recently concluded polls for the three-tier panchayat system, where several lower-level bureaucrats were accused of issuing fake caste certificates following the reported instructions of the ruling party so that general category candidates can contest from reserved seats.

Now, in case of a probable caste census, such allegations might surface in a bigger way thus causing immense embarrassment to the TMC before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, feel observers. They also feel that since caste-based politics have never been a major factor in West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress are cautious about going down this path.

According to them, while religion- based politics has a somewhat straitjacket pattern, in caste-based politics there are too many crosscurrents.

“The prominent leaders from the cow belt and to an extent those from Tamil Nadu have long experience of navigating these crosscurrents and they mainly survive on caste- based politics. The same is not the case not just for Mamata Banerjee, but for leaders from all the political parties in West Bengal. So in my opinion Mamata Banerjee’s hesitation to step into this unknown territory is behind her resistance to a caste-based census,” a city-based political observer said.