From Left showground to saffron coronation: Brigade braces for new turn in West Bengal’s political wheel

Kolkata: Long before television studios began decoding electoral optics and social media turned politics into a perpetual spectacle, Bengal measured political strength through human tides surging into the Brigade Parade Ground.

Since 1950s, the sprawling field in the heart of Kolkata has witnessed international political luminaries like Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez attending functions.

On Friday, workers erected giant rainproof hangars and policemen marked security grids under dark monsoon clouds, across the Maidan, another name of the ground owned by the Indian Army. It appears that the once military parade ground of the British is ready to witness an ideological transition in Bengal’s turbulent political history.

The Brigade Parade Ground that once symbolised the might of the Left Front, hosted anti-Congress mobilisations and later became the stage for Mamata Banerjee’s anti-BJP opposition showpieces, is now preparing to host the swearing-in ceremony of Bengal’s first BJP government.

If elections decide power in Bengal, Brigade often legitimises it.

For generations, the vast green expanse beside the iconic Victoria Memorial has functioned as the state’s ultimate political theatre — where parties displayed organisational muscle, leaders tested public mood, and regimes projected inevitability.

By Saturday evening, when the BJP leadership takes oath before an expected sea of supporters, another chapter will be added to Brigade’s crowded political folklore.

The symbolism is unmistakable. From the late 1970s onward, the CPI(M) transformed Brigade into the epicentre of Bengal’s street politics. Massive annual rallies routinely turned the Maidan into a sea of red flags, reinforcing the aura of a party that would eventually rule the state uninterrupted for 34 years.

For decades, crowd size at Brigade became Bengal’s political currency. The fuller the ground, the stronger the message.

But Brigade’s memory stretches far beyond the Left years.

The ground’s political mythology was shaped not merely by Bengal’s leaders but also by towering figures from global politics. In 1955, Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin received a massive public reception here at a time when Kolkata stood at the centre of India’s socialist imagination.

Years later, after the birth of Bangladesh, former prime minister Indira Gandhi shared the Brigade stage with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as cries of “Jai Bangla” and “Jai Hind” echoed across the Maidan in celebration of the new nation’s emergence.

In 1984, opposition heavyweights such as Jyoti Basu, N T Rama Rao and Farooq Abdullah gathered here for a major anti-Congress conclave aimed at reshaping national politics.

In 2005, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez addressed a Left Front rally at Brigade, underlining the venue’s reputation as a stage where Bengal’s politics often intersected with larger ideological currents across the world.

Decades later, in January 2019, Mamata Banerjee assembled an array of opposition leaders at Brigade in a high-voltage anti-BJP rally projected as a rehearsal for national opposition unity.

And now, in one of Bengal politics’ recurring ironies, the BJP — once electorally marginal in the state — is preparing to convert the same ground into the ceremonial gateway to power.

For decades, the ground served as the arena where Bengal’s political forces demonstrated the strength required to capture power. On Saturday, in a first for the state’s political history, the iconic rally ground will itself become the venue where a government formally takes oath.

A Kolkata-based political analyst said, “Every dominant political force in Bengal has sought emotional and symbolic legitimacy through the Brigade. The BJP wants to visually communicate that Bengal’s political centre of gravity has shifted.” That transition had already begun to take shape months earlier when Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a massive rally at Brigade on March 14, shortly before the election schedule was announced.

The BJP had then projected the event as the launchpad of its “Paribartan Yatra” and a declaration that political change in Bengal was inevitable.

Saturday’s oath-taking ceremony is expected to transform that campaign slogan into a moment of political arrival.

Preparations at the venue reflect the scale and ambition of the occasion.

Party organisers expect close to one lakh attendees at the open-air event. Massive waterproof tents capable of seating around 50,000 people are being erected amid forecasts of rain. A separate enclosure is being prepared for VVIP guests, including judges, industrialists, diplomats, litterateurs and celebrities.

Another section will host newly elected MLAs, MPs and senior BJP leaders.

Yet beyond the political choreography and tight security, organisers are also attempting to wrap the ceremony in distinctly Bengali cultural imagery.

The sprawling Maidan is being decorated with terracotta-inspired motifs, Dakshineswar temple-style installations and Sundarbans-themed structures. Folk traditions such as chhau, baul and gambhira performances are expected to accompany the formal proceedings, while stalls selling jhalmuri, rasagolla and sandesh aim to lend the event the texture of a Bengali public festival.

Portraits of Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and other Bengali icons are also being put up across the venue.

Nearly 4,000 police personnel will guard the sprawling ground, which has been divided into multiple security sectors.

In Bengal, governments change, ideologies mutate and slogans fade with time. Yet every political force seeking permanence eventually returns to the Maidan-- searching not merely for a crowd, but for history’s approval.