Kolkata, India – There are controversies after West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar said about integrating North Bengal with the northeastern states; Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slams BJP. What has come in the public domain has created a political furore; the TMC has squarely blamed the BJP for trying to ‘divide Bengal’ and dubbed it ‘anti-Bengal’ and ‘anti-Bengali’.
Majumdar who is also a Union Minister of State for Education, has moved a proposal in this regard to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressing on the physical contiguity of North Bengal with the Northeastern region of the country. He was particularly of the opinion that inclusion of North Bengal into the Northeast would help improve the region’s connectivity to the central agencies and promote development. “The PM will make the final call on the proposal sometime in the future,” Majumdar said. He went to the state government with this plea arguing that the state stood to gain from the exercise.
In the Rajya Sabha BJP MP Nagendra Ray also known as Anant Maharaj pressured the state government to demand a divided North Bengal for the new state of Cooch Behar. Accepting Ray’s position about the people of Cooch Behar, he opined that injustice has been done to them ever since the independence of India. Ray is, however, a DMA and a leader of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association and wants a new state for the Rajbanshi community and North Bengal and parts of upper Assam.
This is not the first time BJP leaders wanted North Bengal to be restructured, or redecorated or whatever they want to call it. In the year 2021, then Alipurduars MP John Barla demanded a new state or Union Territory for North Bengal stating that the area had been marginalized by the state governments. Other BJP leaders such as Sankar Ghosh and Bishnu Prasad Sharma have also made similar demands in their assertion for instances of a new Territory to be effectuated out of the Darjeeling Hills from West Bengal.
The timing of these demands is quite crucial, more so after witnessing the BJP’s performance in the recently concluded 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections where BJP could manage to win only 77 out of the total 294 seats. The Announcement of the party’s tactical relations with North Bengal is perceived as the bid of the party to consolidate power in the region for the future polls as the party has secured 6 Lok Sabha seats in the region in previous polls.
However, to be safe, BJP officially disapproved of Majumdar’s proposition on the basis of reservation. The party’s spokesperson and the Rajya Sabha MP, Samik Bhattacharya reiterated that, for BJP, Bengal is more inclined towards the entirety of development and not the annexation of the geographical territories.
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They [the BJP] are trying to divide Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Assam; I am going to Delhi to attend a NITI Aayog meeting, she said. She criticized the BJP protesting against them, saying, ‘’They are plotting to disintegrate the nation… to bifurcate Bengal means to bifurcate India. We do not approve of this.
TMC MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray protested against the secessionist move by a Union Minister, and accused Majumdar for crossing the constitutional line. Ray further insinuated that North Bengal is a region of West Bengal and questioned the BJP on why it is keen on dividing the state having flopped in the Poll Boundaries.
This proposition and political discussions show the conflict between TMC and BJP in West Bengal and the politics of the region’s development, marking socio-political processes.
Report By: Sonali Sarkar
Publish By: Your News Sources