Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya on Tuesday slammed chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s new Bengali “ashmita (selfhood)” pitch, asking her why the Trinamool Congress had fielded two candidates from outside the state in the 2024 Lok
Sabha polls.
“Tomorrow, Mamata Banerjee and her party leaders will hit the streets in Calcutta on the Bengali issue. These days, they are consistently underscoring the ‘Bengali Ashmita’ issue, keeping in mind the upcoming Assembly elections,” said Samik, while speaking at a BJP workers’ meeting in Gunjabari, Cooch Behar.
“But I want to ask, where was this thought when she fielded candidates in Asansol and Baharampur? Wasn’t there anybody from Bengal in her party who could have contested from these seats?” he added.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Trinamool had fielded former actor Shatrughan Sinha, who is from Bihar, and Yusuf Pathan, a former cricketer from Gujarat, from Asansol and Baharampur, respectively. Both of them won the elections.
Such an assertion from the state BJP president, and that too, a day ahead of Mamata’s march in Calcutta, hints that the saffron ecosystem is desperate to counter the “outsider” narrative that Trinamool has often used against the BJP.
“Time and again, the TMC leadership, including party supremo Mamata Banerjee, has mentioned that the BJP is a party of outsiders and does not understand the culture and religious practices of Bengal. These days, the ruling party is referring to the detention and harassment of Bengali migrant workers in some of the BJP-ruled states. Thus, the saffron camp has taken the task to nullify the charges,” said a political observer.
Samik, who reached north Bengal on Monday on his first visit after assuming the state president’s post, also played the polarisation card.
“In Assam, there is a state holiday on the birthday of Chila Roy (Shukkladhwaj, a prince of the Cooch Behar royals who was considered the fiercest warrior of the family), but in Bengal, he is almost in oblivion. Time and again, Trinamool is trying to win the support of Rajbanshis, but they know well that it is the BJP that can address their problems,” Samik, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, said, while addressing another party workers’ meeting in Mainaguri of Jalpaiguri this evening.
In north Bengal, votes of the Rajbanshi population decide the results of around 24 of 54 Assembly seats.
The BJP leader also took the task to drive home the point that during Trinamool’s rule, there hasn’t been any administrative decentralisation in the state.
“The chief minister had built and opened Uttarkanya (the state’s branch secretariat in Siliguri) amid much fanfare that people of north Bengal would no longer have to go to Calcutta for administrative works. But people here know the reality as nothing has changed. These were just cosmetic moves to dupe people,” he said.
“The state has opened so-called super-speciality hospitals across Bengal. But in each such establishment, hardly any major treatment facility is available, and people still have to depend on Calcutta,” added Samik.
He also took a dig at the TMC government for failing to create employment. “That is why lakhs of youths from here are migrating to other states,” said the BJP state chief.
Correction
The Telegraph, in its report ‘Bid to woo middle class, please old guard’, published on July 15, 2025, inadvertently referred to state BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya as “a political science professor”. Bhattacharya is not, and has never been, a teacher. The error is regretted.