TMC, BJP race to polarise with eye on 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections

India Today

24-04-2025

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated April 28, 2025)Nowhere did the ripples of discontent over the recently passed Waqf Amendment Act spread as viciously as they did in West Bengal. The unrest was particularly intense in the Muslim-majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda, as well as in Bhangor, in South 24 Parganas. What began as simple protests soon escalated into a violent conflagration on April 11–12, once again exposing the deep communal fault lines that run through the state. Three people died, more than 200 arrests were made, and paramilitary forces were deployed. The crisis is a grim reminder of Bengal's shifting political landscape, where the two leading parties—the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—are striving to outdo each other in their bid to corner the Hindu vote, creating discontent among the state's large Muslim population, a year before the 2026 assembly election.advertisementThe initial spark in Murshidabad was lit in Dhuliyan, in Samserganj block, on April 11. Protesters torched police vehicles and clashed with security forces. In nearby Suti, Ejaz Ahmed was allegedly shot dead by the police. Just a few kilometres away in Samserganj, Hargobindo Das, 70, and his son Chandan, 40, were killed in their own home. The police arrived four hours later. Ironically, the very next day, the police allowed a Ramnavami procession to pass through the area. Some of the marchers allegedly made incendiary speeches; an organiser has since been arrested. On April 15, the police arrested two persons in connection with the murders.
A vehicle set ablaze during anti-Waqf law protests in the district (Photo: PTI)
advertisementChief Minister Mamata Banerjee has publicly rejected the implementation of the amended Waqf law in Bengal. 'Dharma means devotion, affection, humanity, peace, culture, harmony, and unity,' she declared in Kolkata on April 14, asking people to maintain peace. 'Why the fight? Why the riots, war, or unrest?' But critics point to the failure of intelligence units and the administration to anticipate the scale of the protests.
The communal unrest led to the exodus of some 400 terrified people. The BJP claims around 80 Hindu families fled across the Bhagirathi river to Parlalpur in Malda, though local officials dispute the number. There are also allegations that the BJP may have orchestrated the exodus, in a bid to create a communal narrative. Nor was the violence one-sided—Muslim homes faced retaliatory attacks, too. The BJP has also been accused of circulating doctored images of the violence to whip up emotions.Investigators suspect that the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), an offshoot of the banned Popular Front of India, played a role in fuelling the unrest. CPI(M) leader Mohammed Salim visited the family of Hargobindo and Chandan—both party supporters—and condemned the state's inaction against the alleged hate speeches by BJP leaders. 'The hate speeches led to reaction by the other community. It appears that these speeches also serve the ruling dispensation some purpose,' he said.TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh hinted at a larger conspiracy involving 'some central agencies, a section of the BSF, and two or three political parties,' claiming that miscreants were allowed to run amok and then escape unscathed. The suggestion seems to be that the carnage involved some spontaneous violence, as well as an element of politically engineered, and harvested, chaos.advertisementTEMPLE POLITICSThe violence in Murshidabad and elsewhere has to be seen in light of the game of competitive communalism that the TMC and the BJP are playing as they prepare for the electoral showdown next year. Religious symbolism, once peripheral to Bengal's political grammar, has moved centrestage. Temples are now political statements, and festivals potent tools of mobilisation.Since its ascent in 2011, the TMC largely adhered to the secular fabric of the erstwhile Left regime. It enjoyed robust support among minorities, who make up nearly 27 per cent of the state's population. Its response to the BJP's accusations of 'minority appeasement' and 'anti-Hindu' governance were once met with indifference. All that changed in 2019, when the BJP captured 18 out of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats, clinching 57 per cent of the Hindu vote. Changing tack, the TMC's Hindu outreach expanded visibly. Mamata herself began flaunting her Hindu Brahmin identity. A stipend scheme originally started for imams in 2012 was extended to Hindu priests. Varanasi's famed Ganga aarti was replicated on the banks of the Hooghly. Plans for temples—replicas of Puri's Jagannath and Vaishno Devi—were announced. The Rs 250 crore replica of the Jagannath temple in Digha is set to be inaugurated on April 30, the day of Akshaya Tritiya, an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. Not to be outdone, the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari has vowed to build a Ram temple in Nandigram; the foundation stone was laid on Ramnavami.advertisementRamnavami, in fact, has been converted into a statewide phenomenon by the BJP, alongside its affiliate Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). From a subdued ritual a decade ago, it has now morphed into a cultural juggernaut in the state. In 2025 alone, around 2,000 rallies were held, with Ram Mahotsavs claimed to have been held in over 100,000 locations. 'The misrule of the Trinamool Congress has brought together the Hindu community,' says BJP's Samik Bhattacharya. 'Their protests are being translated into Ramnavami and Hanuman Jayanti rallies.'The TMC has responded in kind. Ramnavami processions are now led by its own leaders. In Nabadweep and Purulia, TMC-run municipalities urged butcher shops to remain shut during Holi and Ramnavami. 'Our Ram is peaceful,' said TMC MP Partha Bhowmick, stressing that TMC leaders had always been part of such rallies. 'The BJP wants to impose a foreign culture that teaches children to wield swords.'advertisementEven as this year's Ramnavami passed without incident, earlier years have provided enough of a volatile record: communal unrest erupted in Raniganj in 2018, in Asansol in 2019, in Howrah in 2022 and 2023, and in Murshidabad just last year.A COMMUNAL CAULDRONWest Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has long been walking a political tightrope. While she prominently celebrates festivals like Durga Puja and Chhath Puja, she is equally visible championing welfare schemes for Muslims, attending Eid gatherings, and even appearing in a hijab. It's a carefully calibrated balancing act—aimed at projecting a Hindu-friendly image without alienating the crucial minority vote.But though she is reassuring Muslims that all is well, the party's own politicians are going off-script as politics veers toward religious majoritarianism. In March, Suvendu Adhikari declared in the assembly that he would 'drag minority MLAs of the TMC on to the streets' if the BJP came to power in 2026. In response, the TMC's Humayun Kabir threatened to break Adhikari's hands if he did not apologise. 'My party comes second,' he said. 'My community comes first.' Mamata also joined the fray, asserting her Hindu identity in the house, and accusing the BJP of 'importing fake Hinduism to the state'. It was a preview of the ideological battle shaping up ahead of the 2026 assembly election. Among the Muslim leaders who have been accused of making incendiary statements is Mamata's cabinet colleague and Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who threatened to bring Kolkata to a standstill in protest over the Waqf law. 'This isn't politics of slogans anymore,' political analyst Nirmalya Mukherjee says. 'It's a high-stakes cultural war. If leaders don't tread carefully, Bengal could be staring at a bloodbath.'advertisementSigns of the dangers of communal politics showed up just a day before the Murshidabad flare-up. On April 10, a video showing Muslims protesting the Waqf Act in a rally in Kolkata purportedly asking a bus driver to remove a saffron flag, went viral. Instantly accusing the TMC of appeasement, the BJP urged Hindus to display saffron flags at their homes on Hanuman Jayanti on April 12.THE RACE TO POLARISE BENGALThe BJP and the ruling TMC are competing with each other for Hindu votes through the politics of temples and festivals
In the name of Ram: Trinamool members take out a Ramnavami rally in Howrah, April 6
Adding fuel to this already volatile situation are influential religious bodies. Recently, Pirzada Toha Siddiqui, a prominent cleric of the Hooghly-based Furfura Sharif, called for a mosque to be constructed in Digha to 'balance' the temple project. His more politically active kin, Abbas and Nawshad Siddiqui—founders of the Indian Secular Front (ISF)—are set to challenge the TMC's monopoly over Muslim votes.The RSS, too, has expanded its grassroots reach in Bengal. It is clear that unlike during the 2021 assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bengal, where the BJP won 77 (out of 294) and 12 seats (out of 42) respectively, the state unit's abysmal organisational strength will have RSS backing. Analysts say that the BJP, emboldened by its 38.73 per cent vote share in 2024, is aiming for a 7-8 per cent swing in 2026. The increased turnout of Hindu voters, bolstered by RSS and VHP mobilisation, is key to its realisation.
The cacophony of religious politics drowns the everyday concerns of the common man. There is little to address with the crisis of unemployment or the endemic corruption as evident in multiple alleged scams. The only non-religious issues to have pierced the political din are the alleged irregularities in the RG Kar rape case and the recent Supreme Court cancellation of nearly 26,000 school jobs due to widespread manipulation in the recruitment process under the West Bengal School Service Commission. Yet temples, identity and imagined historical grievances dominate the political narrative. The fire in Murshidabad was not lit in a day. Bengal's political class has sedulously stoked it over the years.Subscribe to India Today MagazineTune InMust Watch