Kolkata: On January 30, 2026, six weeks before the election announcement, Bengali digital creator Sayak Chakraborty ignited a political controversy with a video posted from Kolkata’s historic Olypub restaurant on Park Street. He alleged that he and his companions were unknowingly served beef instead of the mutton steak they had ordered.

The complaint quickly escalated from a dining dispute into a polarised political flashpoint. Following Chakraborty’s formal complaint, police arrested an Olypub waiter, a Muslim by religion.

BJP figures immediately amplified the incident. Leaders like Tarunjyoti Tewari shared the video, while Keya Ghosh used the event to question whether Hindus had become “soft targets.” The restaurant dispute was swiftly repurposed as a broader commentary on Hindu identity and alleged marginalisation under the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government.

Olypub management issued an apology, maintaining the incident was a genuine, unintentional error. Amid mounting social media accusations that he was acting as a political operative – claims he strongly denied – Chakraborty later stated he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

In September, BJP filed its election accounts with the Election Commission of India (ECI). Under Schedule 3, among the media advertising paid for by the party’s Delhi office, there is a line mentioning Sayak Charaborty: “Rs 2,50,000.”

The chronology here requires clarification. Because the ECI expenditure window strictly covers March 15 to May 6, 2026, this financial document does not prove the January Olypub video was a paid political stunt. Asserting that the BJP financed that specific restaurant controversy oversteps the available evidence.

Instead, the financial record establishes a different, but equally significant, trajectory. A digital creator who organically occupied a highly useful cultural fault line for the party subsequently transitioned onto its official media payroll during the formal election campaign.

The Kundu proxy allegations

The same schedule may conceal a second financial connection to that night at Olypub.

Sukanta Kundu, another Bengali digital creator, was present with Chakraborty during the restaurant dispute. While his own name does not appear anywhere in the BJP’s filing, two people who share his surname – Subrata Kundu, paid Rs 3 lakh, and Shikha Kundu, paid Rs 4.5 lakh – do. They have been identified as Kundu’s parents, raising allegations that the payments were routed through family members as proxies. 

Chakraborty is just one of roughly twenty Bengali creators, commentators and digital pages listed under the same schedule, who were collectively paid Rs 2.73 crore directly by the central headquarters.

It is a fraction of the Rs 31.39 crore the BJP paid Google and Facebook for Bengal distribution. It is not clear whether these payments........

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