West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar’s request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to incorporate north Bengal into the Northeast has triggered a political storm, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) calling the party “anti-Bengal” and “anti-Bengali”. BJP leaders have previously raised demands for a separate state or Union Territory (UT) to be carved out of the north Bengal districts.
In a statement issued from Delhi on Wednesday, Majumdar, who is also the Union Minister of State (MoS) for Education, said, “I met with the PM and handed over a presentation, highlighting the similarities between north Bengal and the Northeastern states. I requested him to incorporate north Bengal, a part of West Bengal, into the Northeast (states).”
The minister added, “The PM will decide on the proposal in due time. If north Bengal is incorporated into the Northeast, it will benefit from Central government schemes. There will be more development. I do not think the state government will have any objections and will cooperate.”
The same day in the Rajya Sabha, BJP MP Nagendra Ray, popularly known as Anant Maharaj, demanded a separate state of Cooch Behar to be carved out of north Bengal. “The injustice that has been done to the people of Cooch Behar since Independence must be rectified,” said Ray, who is also a leader of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association that fights for a separate state for the Rajbanshi community, including parts of north Bengal and Assam. He is a descendant of the erstwhile royal family of Cooch Behar.
Has the BJP made such demands earlier?
This is not the first time that state BJP leaders have advocated such a demand and raised it with the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
In 2021, then Alipurduars MP John Barla, a Union Minister at the time, raised the demand for a separate state or Union Territory to be carved out of north Bengal for the region’s development. He alleged that over the years, state governments had neglected the people of this region, never giving them the attention they needed.
The same year, citing the state government’s order for early summer vacation in schools amid a heatwave, then Siliguri MLA Sankar Ghosh raised the statehood demand, saying schools in north Bengal need not be shut as the region was experiencing “pleasant weather”. Meanwhile, Kurseong MLA Bishnu Prasad Sharma demanded the separation of Darjeeling Hills from West Bengal. BJP MP Saumitra Khan also raised a separate statehood demand for the Jangalmahal area in the western parts of Bengal. The BJP had won five of the six Lok Sabha seats in Jangalmahal in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
In 2022, BJP MLAs from Matigara-Naxalbari and Dabgram-Phulbari constituencies, Anandamay Barman and Shikha Chatterjee, spoke in favour of UT status for north Bengal.
Why is the BJP raising this demand now?
Despite a high-octane campaign by its central leaders, the BJP failed to win West Bengal in the 2021 Assembly elections, ending with 77 seats in a 294-member Assembly. Following the electoral debacle, BJP leaders began advocating the separate statehood demand in north Bengal to keep their hopes alive for the Lok Sabha polls. The leaders were of the view that by raising such demands they might get an upper hand in the parliamentary elections.
In the polls, the BJP not only failed to achieve its target of winning 30 Lok Sabha seats, its tally also declined to 12. However, it held on in north Bengal. Of the party’s 12 seats, six are from this region, one less than its 2019 tally. Majumdar and Ray’s comments suggest that the party’s leaders from the region want to keep alive the demand for separating north Bengal from the rest of the state to maintain their hold on the region and corner the government over the relative lack of development there.
However, the party officially attempted to distance itself from its state president’s demand, saying it does not believe in dividing the state. “The BJP believes that overall development of Bengal is possible by maintaining the geographic boundaries of the state,” said party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya. “We don’t believe in dividing the state. All political parties over the years have been vocal about the development of north Bengal. But the Mamata Banerjee government has never made adequate Budget allocation for the people in north Bengal.”
How has the TMC reacted?
Before leaving for Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting on Saturday, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee targeted the BJP over the remarks of its leaders, “From ministers to BJP leaders, they have been conspiring to divide Bengal. On the one hand, there is an economic blockade; on the other, there is a geographical and political blockade. They are conspiring to break the country into pieces. They want to divide Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam… When Parliament is in process, a minister is making statements to divide Bengal. And now from different sources, different party members are giving different types of statements: to divide Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Bengal. We strongly condemn this attitude. To divide Bengal means to divide India. We don’t support this.”
TMC MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, meanwhile, criticised the “secessionist move by a Union Minister”. In a statement, he said, “He (Majumdar) has violated the oath of office under the Constitution. North Bengal is an integral part of West Bengal. Even the PM has no power to accept such unconstitutional and illegal demands. This is an evil design of the BJP to bifurcate West Bengal, as the party has been suffering humiliating defeats in all elections since 2011.”
West Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar. (FB) 
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