Migrants likely to influence fate of elections in state; CAA cloud advantage to Trinamool but BJP to leverage governance failure that led to migration
Migration became an important political agenda during the COVID-19 pandemic. In photo, migrant workers from West Bengal returning home during the lockdown in 2020. Photo: iStock A sizable proportion of West Bengal’s migrant voter population, estimated at around 2.2 million (though unofficial figures suggest it may be higher), will wield significant power in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. According to experts, the recent formalisation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) 2019 may serve as a flashpoint.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ran close to the ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC, also known as TMC), capturing 18 of West Bengal’s 42 seats. BJP trailed by just 1.7 million votes, a mere 2.6 per cent difference between the two parties.
However, the landscape shifted in the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election — TMC won nearly three-quarters of the seats, with over 10 per cent more votes than BJP. The gap in votes widened to over six million in just two years.
Migrant voters drove the wave towards TMC, said researchers, as most were apprehensive over BJP’s advocacy for CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Some migrant workers may have some reservations regarding CAA, said a BJP state official. “However, we are confident that the majority will back us, as they did in the 2019 elections. This is due to the TMC government’s shortcomings, which have forced many people to look for work outside of the state,” the official stated.
BJP leaders believe that CAA will benefit them in constituencies with a large number of Matua, Dalit Bengali Hindus and Scheduled Caste groups who migrated from present-day Bangladesh. In contrast, the TMC hopes that the CAA will work against the BJP, reinforcing their claim that the BJP is anti-Bengal.
Independent experts believe that regardless of viewpoint, the CAA factor will be a prominent narrative in roughly one-fourth of the seats.
CAA, passed by the Parliament in 2019, aims to provide fast-tracked Indian citizenship to six minority communities — Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi and Christian foreigners — who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, as a result of religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Its rules were formulated this March, just before the announcement of the election dates.
Read more: Voting without voters: In Uttar Pradesh, areas with low turnout are hubs of migrant workers
The NRC aims to document all legal Indian citizens in order to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Though it was implemented in Assam from 2013 to 2014, the Union government has yet to roll it out in other parts of the country, despite announcing plans to do so by 2021.
This reporter interviewed over ten experts and field-level social workers. According to them, nearly half of all migrants, particularly those in border areas, are expected to return and vote in the upcoming election. The upcoming Eid festival is expected to speed up this process.
Will the recent notification implementing the CAA rules help Trinamool garner migrant votes? A expert believes so, based on his 2021 study.
“We carried out a study in 2021 in a few districts and found that the majority of migrant workers came back and voted in favour of Trinamool to keep BJP away from office. They felt a BJP win would lead to the implementation of CAA and NRC,” said Rajat Kanti Sur, a researcher with Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.
Read more: Voting without voters: Migrant workers in Odisha’s Nuapada unable to afford trip home to cast ballot
The paper, Election Campaigns as Performance: Migrants and Refugees as an Issue in West Bengal Elections, authored by Sur explored that returnee migrant labourers were more sympathetic to the ruling TMC because of their role in providing access to social welfare schemes, free rations and other financial assistance.
Mamata Banerjee, chief minister and TMC chairperson, assured cross-border migrants and other members of minority communities that new citizenship amendments would not be implemented during her election campaigns in border districts, which helped to mobilise votes.
A paper by Soumya Bhowmick and Ambar Kumar Ghosh, Battle for Bengal 2021: Political Themes and Electoral Dynamics, March 2021, published by global think tank Observer Research Foundation, also analysed the importance of migrants in the last elections.
Data from the 2011 Census show that West Bengal ranks fourth among states from which people migrate to other cities, the paper said.
“Between 2001 and 2011, 0.58 million people migrated to other states from Bengal; the number was over 1.1 million in 2020 according to the state government… As they form a significant section of the electorate in the state, both the BJP and AITC have made attempts to woo these migrant workers,” it said.
The paper noted that migration became an important political agenda during the COVID-19 pandemic and was a point of contention between BJP-led Centre and the AITC-led West Bengal government.
“A 2019 election analysis suggests that BJP has managed to raise its clout in the state largely due to the support it receives from sections of the Dalit migrant population, especially the Matua community on the CAA issue,” read the report. However, several experts claimed that much water has flowed over the Ganga since then and that the initial euphoria has subsided to some extent.
There have also been discrepancies in the number of migrants.
“As per our documentation so far, the number of migrants from Bengal working in other states is about 2.2 million,” said Samirul Islam, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member of Parliament, who was recently appointed chairperson of the 10-member West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board.
The welfare board is the first of its kind in India, claimed Islam. “The state government, through this board, has taken several schemes, including financial and health, to support migrant workers not only when they return but also in the places where they work,” he told this reporter, implying that the migrants would support the ruling AITC.
Many people believe that the true number of migrant workers is greater. In a 2019 electoral meeting in Kolkata, Prime Minister Modi claimed that nearly four million Bengalis migrate to other states for work, blaming the state government for failing to provide adequate livelihood opportunities.
“The state government has begun migrant documentation, but the actual number may be higher,” said social activist Naba Dutta of nonprofit Nagarik Mancha. Dutta claimed that political parties, especially those in power, frequently spend money to bring migrants home during elections.
A senior AITC member from South 24 Parganas district confided that parties try to bring home a few migrants, particularly those who hold significant influence over local residents. “We may not pay directly, but we promise to facilitate various government-sponsored schemes for their families in return,” said another member from Malda.
“This trend (spending to bring migrants back into the state during elections) is more prevalent during Panchayat elections, but here the urge to document our citizenship, particularly in relation to CAA, will be paramount this year,” said a Murshidabad migrant who works in southern India.
While the CAA and NRC acts are distinct, many, particularly Muslim migrants, are concerned that the two acts will be used in tandem, creating a citizenship cloud for them. This fear motivates them to return in order to exercise their voting rights, not only to document their citizenship as voters but also to influence political discourse.
Read more: 2024 Lok Sabha polls: With almost 50% electorate, women voters to drive elections this year
Not just Muslim, many non-Muslims are also perplexed, as applying through the CAA portal means admitting that you are not an Indian citizen despite having a voter card, Aadhar card and ration card for many years, said Biswajit Mandal (name changed on request). Mandal is from Gosaba in South 24 Parganas district and works as a mason in the southern part of the country.
Mandal said he fears any applications in the CAA portal may be used him. “Migrants like me are especially panicked, so I would like to come back and vote as far as possible, despite the cost and time involved,” he said.
Even the majority of BJP supporters have not enrolled in the newly launched CAA portal, fearing potential backlash in the future.
“The upcoming Eid al-Fitr may also facilitate the process. Many workers are likely to visit home for the festival and stay back to vote. I feel around 40 per cent workers will come back,” said Shekhar Dutta, a social activist of Murshidabad who works within the migrant population.
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