BJP MP’s ‘one with B’desh’ remark draws ‘deception’ barb from TMC
Times of India | 2 November 2025
Kolkata: BJP Ranaghat MP Jagannath Sarkar's comment on Bangladesh that "we were one, we will be one in the future too" prompted Trinamool on Saturday to launch a blistering attack on the saffron party for its "hypocrisy" on illegal infiltration.
Adding to discordant BJP voices trying to address the growing unease among the Matua community — its strong vote bank — over SIR (special intensive revision) of poll rolls, Sarkar said in a recent public meeting: "We give you our word that if we win this time, we will not maintain the barbed wire fence with Bangladesh. We were one (in the past); we will be one in the future, too."
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee led the attack on Sarkar. On Saturday, attaching a clip of the MP's remarks, he wrote: "The hypocrisy of the BJP leadership has fallen to new depths. The same BJP government, including Union home minister Amit Shah, keeps blaming the West Bengal government for not giving land to ‘protect' the very borders their own MP wants to erase!"
"I challenge them to suspend this MP immediately. Their silence will only expose that he spoke with the full consent of the BJP leadership," Banerjee wrote, adding that was "deception, not nationalism".
Sarkar did not deny his words. Speaking to TOI, he said: "India's development under PM Narendra Modi has prompted countries like Afghanistan to express their willingness to align with our nation. Bangladesh was a part of India before Partition. If BJP comes to office in Bengal, they will be integrated more with India. The barbed wire fences between the two nations will not be required then. It will be more like another state of India.
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"Those who criticized my statement forgot BJP's philosophy of ‘Akhand Bharat'," he added.
Bengal BJP netas believe Sarkar's statement was primarily aimed at calming the anxiety among Matuas, his key vote bank in Ranaghat constituency. Community members say the mandatory inclusion in the 2002 voter list under SIR has created uncertainty for those whose names or ancestral records are missing.
Matuas are Namasudras — lower-caste Hindu refugees who migrated to Bengal from present-day Bangladesh since Partition.
They constitute the state's second-largest SC group, with a decisive presence in at least 30 assembly constituencies and electoral influence in nearly 40–45 seats.
Interestingly, while Sarkar was making this statement in Ranaghat, BJP Bongaon MP and junior Union minister Shantanu Thakur — who also heads the All India Matua Mahasangha — said during a CAA camp in Bongaon: "Those who have come from Bangladesh, those who have physically arrived from Bangladesh, please apply for citizenship. Even if your name is deleted from SIR just once, it will be added back to the voter list after you receive citizenship.
Not Rohingya or Bangladeshi Muslims or ‘ghost voters', refugees who came from across the border apply for CAA immediately. You have nothing to fear."