BJP's separatist buzz grows louder: Question raised inside party over lack of prudence

Questions are being raised within the saffron camp over the lack of prudence in the growing list of lawmakers making outlandish claims about redrawing the borders of the state with the obvious intent of communal polarisation

Sukanta Majumdar, Nishikant Dubey: PTI picture

Avijit Sinha, Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, Calcutta, Siliguri, 29.07.24 : The contentious proposals floated by the likes of Sukanta Majumdar and Nishikant Dubey have opened a proverbial can of worms for the BJP in Bengal.

Questions are being raised within the saffron camp over the lack of prudence in the growing list of lawmakers making outlandish claims about redrawing the borders of the state with the obvious intent of communal polarisation..

On Sunday, Subrata Maitra, the BJP’s Behrampore MLA, was the latest to join the bandwagon.

“I am not asking for a division of the state or district, but what I am asking for is a change in the rule. The administrative control should be with the Centre in the districts of Murshidabad, Malda, North and South Dinajpur and Nadia to check infiltration and stop demographic changes,” Maitra said, in referring to districts where Muslims constitute a vast section of the electorate.

Maitra was the second of the BJP’s lawmakers from the Murshidabad district, with around 70 per cent Muslims, to raise such a demand in a matter of days.

Last week, Murshidabad MLA Gouri Sankar Ghosh said he had sent a letter to the Centre in 2022 proposing a six-district (Muslim majority) Union Territory comprising Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar and Purnia of Bihar, and Bengal’s Malda and Murshidabad. The BJP’s Godda MP Dubey has raised a similar demand in Parliament.

Earlier, BJP Bengal unit chief Majumdar — also the junior Union minister for development of the Northeastern region — had claimed to have submitted the proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the inclusion of the eight north Bengal districts in the North Eastern Council (a statutory body for the eight Northeastern states). This prompted BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Nagendra Roy and its Kurseong MLA B.P. Sharma to reiterate their statehood demands. Maldaha MLA Gopal Chandra Saha had backed their demand.

On Sunday, BJP’s Jalpaiguri MP Jayanta Kumar Roy said he completely supported Majumdar.

“If north Bengal is included in the NEC, it will help in getting additional central funds and will expedite the development of this region. As north Bengal has been deprived for decades, the demand for separate state or Union Territory has been raised here time and again,” said Roy.

While Roy’s statement was moderate, the deliberately inflammatory statements by others raised questions on whether the BJP was giving a walkover to Mamata Banerjee long ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections by engaging in a highly emotive issue such as the redrawing of Bengal’s border.

“Any call for another partition of Bengal is unlikely to find many takers even among the most BJP-supporting, hardline Hindutva-backing, communally polarised Hindu Bengali,” said a BJP leader in Calcutta.

For at least a year since its defeat in the Assembly polls of 2021, the saffron ecosystem was seen going out of its way to try and delegitimise the mandate. It has started attempting that again after being reduced to a dozen seats in the Lok Sabha polls.

Repeated actions and accompanying provocations from the saffron ecosystem were apparently in consonance with the deafening noise in its echo chambers demanding the imposition of Article 356 in Bengal and “reducing it to Kashmir-like rubble”.

A senior BJP functionary pointed out that former BJP MPs such as John Barla from Alipurduar had earlier blatantly spoken in support of statehood demands and the most embarrassing element for the Bengal leadership was the neither-spit-nor-swallow situation with these senior lawmakers.

“It was evident then that such remarks would jeopardise our prospects in Bengal, especially in the southern parts. The central leadership had also understood it and had gagged Barla. A similar set of strict instructions is the need of the hour to prevent further damage,” he said.

He said eight districts of north Bengal have only eight of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats. Of the 294 Assembly seats, only 54 are in north Bengal.

As the Bengal BJP continues to grapple with the situation, Majumdar during an interaction with journalists on Sunday, made another attempt to control the damage.

“I had explicitly stated that the inclusion of north Bengal in NEC could be done while the region continues to be a part of Bengal. Our party’s stand is loud and clear... we want to maintain the territorial integrity of the state,” he said.