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Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground on March 14 was a high-octane exercise in political theatre. Designed to project an unstoppable surge for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, the event featured an impressive turnout around a stage framed by a replica of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar.

Yet, beneath the aggressive messaging, the prime minister’s speech functioned less as a sign of new political intervention and more as a compilation of familiar rhetoric. From “cut money” – a term signifying Trinamool leaders’ penchant for corruption – to Sandeshkhali, from the R.G. Kar rape and murder to apparent “infiltration”, every topic was a product of repetition. 

The most revealing aspect of the day, however, was not the content itself, but the glaring contradictions that emerged when the prime minister’s charges were held up against the BJP’s own record in governance and the administration of justice.

Modi opened his address by weaponising central welfare schemes like the Jal Jeevan Mission and Ayushman Bharat, framing them as gifts being maliciously withheld by TMC. He accused the state government of actively sabotaging implementation or shamelessly rebranding federal projects to hijack credit.

This was the most politically useful part of the speech, and also the most revealing. Moments before the BJP rally, Modi had attended a government programme at the same venue and launched projects. He then shifted almost immediately into campaign mode and used the language of public delivery as a partisan weapon.

The overlap was hard to ignore. BJP has long accused TMC of erasing the line between government and party. At Brigade, Modi erased it himself. A government function and a party rally followed one another in the same venue, with the same principal actor and the same political purpose. 

The second part of the speech moved to the usual terrain of outrage like........

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