Chanakya Charan Dass – “Tikri”
chanakya.charandass.tikri@gmail.com
Bengal elections have been very keenly contested state elections ever in India. The closest, to the best I can think of were the ones held in 1977 in J&K when Sheikh Abdullah won 47/76 seats to the state legislature, 7 of them (unbelievably) from the Jammu region out of a total of 32. The Sheikh did not participate in electioneering, pretending sickness, while recordings of his speech were played to the highly emotional and surcharged audience. The audience was told that he was on his death bed and his last appeal to the Kashmiris was to vote National Conference to power.
Elections in Bengal, however, were fought on issues not only critical for its people but also for 1.4 billion citizens of the country. The shrill, autocratic and dictatorial misrule of TMC party of Mamata had created a situation in the state that was ripe for a change of the government. Mamata’s silence on the atrocities on the Hindus of Bangladesh next door, over last few years, couldn’t have gone unnoticed by the people of Bengal. The brutal rape of women, murder of the innocent citizens, burning of the properties, temples and commercial establishments of Hindus, especially after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina from Bangladesh must have run a chill through the spine of the Hindus of Bengal especially as the events consequent to “Direct Action Day” called by Jinnah in 1946 couldn’t have been lost from the collective memory of the Bengalis. Today it was Pope, tomorrow it would be potatoes in Bangladesh, but it was the hapless Hindus who faced the brunt of the marauders.
But, did the events in Bangladesh alone unnerve the Sanatanis of Bengal? The answer is no!!
Surprisingly, the situation in Bengal was no better!!
The goons of the TMC were free to inflict terror on Hindus in whatever way they wanted in Bengal and Mamata ensured full and unashamed protection to them.
Some of the women who have won elections to the state assembly on the ticket of BJP are a living testimony to the atrocities of the TMC government in Bengal.
Ratna Debnath, a poor woman whose husband worked as a small-time tailor, literally became the face of resistance to the Mamata government. Her only daughter, a 31-year-old doctor, was brutally raped and murdered in what was considered to be the “protected environs” of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August 2024. Her daughter was a post-graduate trainee at the hospital.
Fully protected by the government the hospital authorities initially tried to pass her death off as a suicide, but when the pressure from the poor parents, local and non-local doctors and the public grew the Mamata government got the autopsy conducted in haste and the body of the victim was cremated hastily without handing it over to her distraught parents. Brutal rape and death of the doctor shook Bengalis to the core.
Every attempt was made by the hospital administration to clean the crime scene of any telltale forensic signs of rape and brutality inflicted on the doctor. Repair work was started almost the next day at the scene of the crime and later a mob was sent in to damage, ransack and vandalize the crime scene where a peaceful candle march was underway by the people in the area to protest the killing of the doctor.
Instead of acting against the principal of the college the TMC government transferred him to another medical college. Ratna Debnath, the victim’s mother, resolved that she would not comb her hair till justice was delivered to her innocent daughter. Considering her marginalized background and educational limitations, her election campaign was more of a personal appeal against the tyrannical regime that refused to deliver justice to her dead daughter. She met the electorate of her constituency teary eyed, often sobbing and at other times embracing the visibly shaken women folk.
Her face became the message that was not limited to her constituency but became a message for the whole of Bengal – the message was clear; oust the pathetic Mamata government.
All this while, Mamata Banerjee and her government stood with the criminals.
There were hundreds of such incidents in Mamata ruled Bengal where poor were harassed, their lands grabbed, women molested and raped while the corrupt ruled the roost. Instances were reported when tribal women were made to crawl – “dandavat parikrama” – to the TMC functionaries offices to humiliate them as they had associated themselves with the BJP. The concept was to terrorize the locals so that they could not stand up to the TMC establishment.
Terror perpetrated by the leaders of TMC in Sandeshkhali threw up a marginalized woman, Rekha Patra, as a face of resistance to the brutalities of the TMC goons. (Her total assets; Rs.25,000!!) While the Enforcement Directorate team landed in Sandeshkhali in January 2024 to investigate the role of Sheikh Shahjahan in the ration scam under a TMC minister Jyotipriya Mallik were attacked and several of them were injured. In fact, Mamata government lodged FIR against the ED team to frustrate its efforts to get at the bottom of the scam. Finally, after the intervention of courts when the investigation finally started it came to fore that Shahjahan and his associates were not only involved in the ration scam but also in land grab, rape and torture of womenfolk of families and individuals who refused to tow their line. Shahjahan was finally arrested.
Rekha Patra is now a BJP MLA in the recently elected state legislature. The brazenness of TMC members is such that after losing elections they are sending white sarees to the ladies of BJP cadre declaring, symbolically, not-so-far widowhood for them. This was the level of vile and hatred spread by TMC.
It would be an interesting research work to understand the number of assembly seats TMC must have lost after Sayooni Ghosh, the TMC – MP, sang the “Aankhun main Kaaba; Dil main Madina” song in her public meetings. Candidly speaking, music is the core of Sanatan and none would have noticed the eulogy by her to the two revered religious places of Islam. However, what rattled Sanatanis was that the same Sayooni Ghosh, with a big red bindi on her forehead, had posted a caricature ridiculing Shri Mahadev on X-platform. She mocked Him by depicting 3/4th of a Shivalingam covered by a condom and revealing the “tripund tilak” on the 1/4th at the lower end. The backlash by the Sanatanis in Bengal and across the country to this shamelessness was severe. Bengalis gave vent to their feelings by voting the TMC out – the “ballot paper way” in the truest traditions of democracy!!
The most vicious and divisive policy (with national security implications for the country) being followed by Mamata Banerjee in Bengal was protection, bordering on encouragement, to the illegal immigrants from Bangla Desh and Rohingyas of Myanmar. She went to the extent of not allocating land for installation of fence in the areas bordering Bangladesh.
This was a complete U-turn for Mamata Banerjee, who as an MP, in August 2005 (UPA government), had described the presence of illegal immigrants in the electoral rolls of Bengal as a disaster. When she was not allowed to raise this issue in the Lok Sabha by the Deputy Speaker she went to the well of the house and threw papers on the chair and later resigned in protest saying that it was no use to be in Lok Sabha if the issues pertaining to the people were not being allowed to be raised. Her resignation was not accepted.
So, what changed Mamata Banerjee?!
This question certainly needs an answer. Was she overtaken excessively by the trappings of power and thought that her and Abhishek Banerjee’s (her nephew) insurance to infinite continuum in power was the vote bank of illegal immigrants in Bengal? Was she playing into the hands of the “Greater Bangladesh” forces, wittingly or unwittingly? Didn’t she hear Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s interim leader (2024-26), calling the seven northeastern “Seven Sisters” states of India landlocked and declaring Bangladesh the “only guardian of the ocean” for the region, even inviting China to use Bangladesh as its maritime gateway? These were no off the cuff remarks. They were mischievous and an extension of the deep rooted and long-standing, but unfulfillable desire of the internal as well as external forces inimical to the interests of the country. The idea was to swamp Bengal with illegal immigrants for electoral gains as far as Mamata was concerned but the “Greater Bangladesh” project of the enemies of the nation envisaged turning the indigenous population of Bengal into a minority thereby making the state vulnerable to the machinations of the anti-national forces.
Wasn’t Sharjeel Imam, the former JNU student, pushing the same agenda during CAA protests?
Didn’t Mamata hear Asif Munir, the Field Marshal of Pakistan, declaring in a meeting with the Pakistani diaspora in the US that Pakistan now had the capabilities to disturb the eastern part of India as it is building assets/infrastructure there? This was after Op Sindhoor and subsequent to Donald Trump befriending him. Why then was Mamata’s policy on illegal infiltration from Bangladesh and that of Rohingyas in sync with the enemies of India?
She tried to stall SIR (Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls), a genuine legal process, to identify ineligible voters. She didn’t leave any stone unturned to achieve her nefarious objective – from the courts to the street power – but nothing was to her avail. In fact, it only exposed her love for the illegal immigrants.
Mamata and her ilk had no regrets about the exodus of over one lakh Hindus who had to take shelter in Assam in the face of violence against them by TMC cadre after 2021 state elections.
Finally, Mamata lost the elections, and BJP government was sworn on the 9th of May 2026. Suvendu Adhikari became the new Chief Minister.
For the people in J&K the firm embrace of the 98 years old Makhan Lal Sarkar by Narendra Modi must not have been lost. Makhan Lal Sarkar was accompanying Shyama Prasad Mukherjee to J&K on that fateful trip when he died in Srinagar under suspicious circumstances on June 23, 1953, while the Sheikh was the PM of J&K. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee had entered J&K without a permit and was protesting against grant of special status to J&K under article 370 of the Indian constitution.
History has turned a full circle in 2026 with installation of a BJP government in Bengal, a reincarnation of Jan Sangh, the party founded by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. The party will face insurmountable challenges. On one hand it will have to meet the expectations of the people of the state and on the other overhaul the law enforcement machinery. It will have to generate employment for the youth, bring in investment while keeping a tab on illegal immigration.
The task is cut out for the new CM. While bigger challenges shall be faced and issues settled, hopefully, given the profile of the CM, he will also have to address such smaller things as ensuring that the traffic police of Bengal challans the skull cap wearing traffic violators as much as those who don’t wear them. Hitherto, in Bengal, the skull cap wearing violators would not face a challan while all others did. That is the “depth” of discrimination bequeathed to Sudendu Adhikari by the Mamata regime. Brazen cow smuggling in full daylight to Bangladesh is the other level of the challenge which is fuelling an illegal parallel economy.
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