Swapan Majumder on the campaign trail.
Bongaon South is one of 68 assembly constituencies in Bengal that are reserved for the Scheduled Castes. The majority of the voters are Matua Namasudra Dalits who trace their ancestry to what was once East Bengal. Most came over during Partition and after the formation of Bangladesh, fleeing religious persecution. There is no official data, but they are estimated to number nearly one crore across the state. Many arenât citizens yet, so the BJP is doling out the promise of citizenship to win them over.
The Hindutva party has fielded Swapan Majumder, an associate of BJP MP and All India Matua Mahasangha president Shantanu Thakur, to take on Alo Rani Sarkar of the Trinamool Congress. Sarkar is a BJP turncoat.