Ending the long-standing wait of refugees and the Matua community, the process of granting citizenship is going to begin fully and vigorously very soon. Union Minister of State for Shipping and one of the prominent faces of the Matua community, Santanu Thakur, made this highly significant and major announcement while attending a special and crowded event in Durgapur. He stated in very clear and unequivocal terms that to make the citizenship application process for common people much easier, simpler, public-friendly, and dynamic, arrangements are now being made to apply directly to the District Magistrate. He made this historic announcement while attending as the chief minister/guest at a grand convention organized by the Paschim Bardhaman district unit of the All India Matua Mahasangha regarding the formation of a new 'Matua Sena' committee at Bidhan Bhavan in Durgapur's Ispatnagari on Sunday.
While speaking at the event, Union Minister Santanu Thakur strongly criticized the political situation of the past and the indifferent role of various previous governments. Expressing deep anger, he said that many people from Bangladesh and various other neighboring countries were forced to take shelter in India due to various political, religious, economic, and social reasons. However, for many long decades, various political parties used this extremely sensitive humanitarian issue merely for their narrow vote-bank politics and continued to stall and delay granting them citizenship. As a result, the people of this community have been deprived of many basic government services, including education, health, and employment, for a long time. Mentioning the current situation, he strongly demanded that for the sake of overall development of the country and the state, a firm, transparent, and public-friendly administration is extremely necessary. He strongly opined that due to the sincere goodwill of the central government and the historic legal amendment, the path to a permanent, legal, and honorable solution to this long-standing complex problem has been paved today.
Bringing up the context of the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Santanu Thakur informed the thousands of people present that this process is going to be launched in a much broader and accelerated manner very soon. He is optimistic that the verification of all these documents and the work of granting citizenship will be completed swiftly through the District Magistrates, making the entire process much faster, error-free, and transparent than before. In today's grand convention, special emphasis was placed not only on political or citizenship issues, but also on social reform and overall social development. Shedding detailed light on the future role and responsibilities of the newly formed Matua Sena committee, he stated that this organization will not remain limited within the boundaries of political or organizational spheres. Alongside standing continuously by the side of ordinary people in any danger and performing various welfare works, the members of this committee will provide all-out assistance to ordinary people in correctly filling out citizenship application forms and overcoming other related legal and administrative complexities.
Besides Santanu Thakur, several prominent personalities and public representatives of the area were present at this extremely important and crowded event today. Among them were MLA Soma Thakur, Lakhan Ghorui, Chandrasekhar Bandyopadhyay, along with district leadership at various levels of the All India Matua Mahasangha and Matua Sena, and a large number of enthusiastic workers and supporters. Following the Union Minister's groundbreaking announcement, an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm, joy, and excitement was observed among the people of the Matua community in Durgapur and the entire Paschim Bardhaman district. The spontaneous presence and jubilation of the people at today's event are the best proof that, along with the formation of the new committee, the Matua society has begun to dream anew with full hope, assured by this strong promise of obtaining citizenship.
