BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Friday called on the Bangladeshi deputy high commissioner in Calcutta, Sikder Mohammad Ashrafur Rahman, demanding an end to the alleged oppression of Hindus in the neighbouring country.

The move is part of the BJP’s strategy to use the Bangladesh issue against the Trinamool Congress to consolidate Hindu voters in Bengal ahead of Assembly elections.

Along with five Hindu monks, Adhikari met the Bangladeshi envoy to raise his concerns and demands regarding the alleged oppression of Hindus, particularly the killing of Dipu Chandra Das in Mymensingh on December 20.

“I sent a clear message to the Bangladesh deputy high commissioner that we will not sit idle if two crore Hindus in Bangladesh face trouble in their own country. Today, we expressed our concerns and demanded that the oppression of Hindus in Bangladesh be stopped,” said Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly.

He also slammed the Mamata Banerjee government for putting up iron barricades to stop Hindus from protesting outside the deputy high commission office.

“If the atrocities against Hindus do not stop, I will come in January with five lakh Hindu monks and saints, after they return from the Gangasagar Mela, to break all such barricades and reach the Bangladesh deputy high commission,” he added.

The Nandigram MLA said Bangladeshi officials had assured him that those arrested on charges of murdering Hindu youth Dipu Das would not be granted bail before the judicial proceedings ended.

Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar, a former state BJP president, attended a march in Hooghly’s Arambagh, where atrocities against Hindus were raised. The rally was organised to protest against alleged misgovernance in Bengal.

The BJP and the entire saffron ecosystem have taken up the recent unrest in Bangladesh to use it as a political weapon in Bengal against the Trinamool Congress.

Adhikari on Friday reiterated that the situation in Bangladesh was similar to that under the Mamata Banerjee regime.

The BJP’s objective is to highlight the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh and consolidate Hindu votes in Bengal. Since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August last year, BJP leaders have claimed that the party has witnessed strong Hindu consolidation in Bengal.

Counter narrative

Desh Bachao Ganamancha, a platform of academics and social activists, on Friday compared the situation in Bangladesh — where Hindus are allegedly being killed — with purported atrocities against minorities in India.

Addressing a news conference held at the Kolkata Press Club, several speakers of the platform said while Hindu youths like Dipu Chandra Das and Amrita Mondal had been killed in Bangladesh, Juyel Sheikh, a migrant worker from Murshidabad, had been lynched in Odisha after being branded as Bangladeshi.

Most speakers pointed out that just as fundamentalist forces gained the upper hand in Bangladesh, a similar situation existed in India, describing it as two sides of the same coin.