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Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Why Bangladesh played a big role in BJP’s West Bengal win

With the BJP’s illegal Bangladeshi immigrants narrative, a distinctly Left state that had for long mostly kept the Hindu-Muslim binary out of poll narrative could no longer do so.

You need a compelling story to turn an essentially Red state into a saffron one, almost a colour revolution of sorts through the ballot box. The Left Front may have lost power to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress in 2011 after 34 long years, but West Bengal even under Banerjee remained largely Left.

In fact, the politics of the Trinamool Congress, with its vehement nod to wide-net welfarism and its history of being on the wrong side of big industry (the Singur agitation of 2006-2008 against Tatas and the inability to attract substantial volume of new business when in power) was commonly spoken of in the state as being Left of Left. 

This explains why the result of the Assembly polls on 4 May has come as such a shock to many Bengal watchers. Among other factors, a big reason for the BJP’s decisive win is neighbouring Bangladesh. 

Be it the treatment meted out to Bangladeshi Hindus after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina administration, or the consolidated voting of the Matua community that has its origin story in modern-day Bangladesh or the fear of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants changing the demography of the state.

Hasina’s fall, Hindutva’s rise

In December 2025, a huge protest led by Hindu monks and Hindutva groups took place outside the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata, demanding justice for Dipu Chandra Das, a Hindu garment worker who was lynched and set on fire by a mob in........

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