Shah calls for ‘Sonar Bangla’ after 2026 polls, Abhishek hits back: BJP ‘anti-Bengali’

“The entire world has acknowledged and witnessed this great tradition of Bengal,” Shah told the crowd, extending his “best wishes and congratulations for Durga Puja to the entire public of West Bengal and the people of the country.”

After the puja, he said: “I have prayed to Maa that after the elections such a government comes to this Bengal that can build Sonar Bangla. May we be able to construct here the Bengal of Kaviguru’s imagination.”

Shah also expressed hope that the festival would “lead us towards the auspicious” and that the dream of a developed India envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be realised through Bengal’s progress.

The event coincided with the 205th birth anniversary of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the 19th-century educationist and social reformer, and Shah paid tribute to Vidyasagar’s contributions to education, the Bengali language, culture and women’s rights.

Earlier in the day, Shah visited the Kalighat temple and offered prayers. He also expressed condolences to families of those who lost their lives in the heavy rains ahead of the festival.

The inauguration drew senior political figures, including Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari, who lauded the pandal’s theme as a tribute to victims of the Pahalgam violence and “an embodiment of the unbreakable spirit of our Armed Forces.”

Adhikari urged people to remember the sacrifices of soldiers guarding the nation’s borders. But the ceremony also sharpened political contrasts.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) used the occasion of Vidyasagar’s birth anniversary to underscore what it calls threats to “Bangla-asmita” (Bengali pride) and to revive memories of the violent clashes in May 2019, when a bust of Vidyasagar on the Vidyasagar College campus was smashed during riots that accompanied a BJP roadshow.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee posted on X that Vidyasagar’s life and work are foundational to modern Bengal.

“I pay my respectful homage to the pioneer of Bengal’s renaissance, Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, on his birth anniversary,” she wrote, recalling Vidyasagar’s campaign against child marriage and his role in promoting widow remarriage.

“His thoughts and indomitable courage are the foundation of today’s modern Bengal. There is no place in this Bengal for those who do not believe in Vidyasagar’s ideals of secular humanity.”

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who paid homage at a memorial on Friday, criticised Amit Shah for not visiting Vidyasagar College or the reformer’s house during his Kolkata trip.

“I felt deeply saddened that someone who came to inaugurate a puja pandal just 10 minutes away was not even aware that today is the 205th birth anniversary of Vidyasagar,” Banerjee said, accusing the BJP of showing scant respect for Bengal’s cultural icons. He demanded that those responsible for the 2019 vandalism apologise.

“This is why we call them Bangla-Birodhi. People have seen it before and they will see it again. Our political battles will continue, but the way they insult Bengal’s stalwarts cannot be forgotten. They don’t know where Rabindranath Tagore was born. They mispronounce Panchanan Barma. They are unaware of the contributions of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, or Khudiram Bose. We do not need to learn about Bengal’s culture from them,” Abhishek said.

Later in the day, senior TMC minister and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim accused the BJP of showing “fake affection” towards the people of West Bengal during the election season, while mistreating them in other parts of the country once polls are over.

“During the election season, BJP leaders show love for Bengal, its culture and Bengali people. But when there are no elections, Bengalis are beaten up and harassed across the country and in states where the BJP is in power. BJP leaders are like migratory birds that come to Bengal only during elections,” Hakim told media persons in Kolkata.

In the midst of an election rally in Kolkata on Tuesday, the chief minister slammed the BJP as being external to Bengal. “Amit Shah’s rally is full of people from Rajasthan, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand,” said Mamata Banerjee.

“Do you, the goonda leaders of Delhi, know who Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was?”

The May 14, 2019 clashes in College Street erupted when a BJP convoy led by Amit Shah passed through the area and was met with protests from the Trinamool’s student wing, who shouted “Amit Shah go back”, leading to violence across the city; a Vidyasagar bust on the Vidyasagar college campus was damaged and subsequently replaced. The episode has remained a flashpoint in Bengal politics, repeatedly cited by the TMC to portray the BJP as insensitive to regional sentiments.