Mamata Banerjee urges PM Modi to push UN for peacekeeping force in Bangladesh; BJP slams her 'crocodile tears'

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to nudge the United Nations to deploy a peacekeeping force in Bangladesh, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party, the main challenger to her Trinamool Congress in the state, moved to cash in on the atrocities on the minority community in the neighbouring country.

Banerjee sought Modi’s interventions to bring back the citizens of India from Bangladesh. She criticised the BJP-led government in the Centre for keeping mum on the issue for the past 10 days. She demanded that either the prime minister or External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar should brief parliament about India’s position on the current situation in Bangladesh.

The chief minister’s statement in the legislative assembly of West Bengal came on a day the Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, and other BJP leaders joined the protests by an organisation of monks near the Petrapole-Benapole land customs station on the border between India and Bangladesh against the atrocities on the Hindus in the neighbouring country.

Adhikari vowed to impose a blockade and stop the export of all essential commodities from India to Bangladesh if the interim government, led by economist Muhammad Yunus, in the neighbouring country could not stop the persecution of the Hindus. He also demanded the immediate release of Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, who had been arrested by Bangladesh Police a week back and charged with sedition allegedly for disrespecting the national flag of the neighbouring country.

Banerjee said in the state assembly that it was beyond her purview to comment on India’s bilateral relations with Bangladesh.

“However, in the wake of the recent developments and the experience narrated by many people here having relatives in Bangladesh, the arrests of people, who wanted to come over to our side (India from Bangladesh), and my conversations with the ISKCON representatives here, I have to make this statement on the floor of this House,” she said, adding: “If required, let an international peacekeeping force be sent to Bangladesh after talking to the (interim) government there to help them restore normalcy.”

“If required, we can rehabilitate the Indians attacked in Bangladesh. We have no problem sharing our ‘one roti’ with them if the need arises. There will be no shortage of food for them.”

Some citizens of India living in West Bengal of late returned from Bangladesh and alleged that they had been either harassed or attacked in the neighbouring country.

The BJP leader Amit Malviya, however, alleged that the West Bengal chief minister was shedding crocodile tears for Hindus of Bangladesh.

The BJP emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal in 2021 but failed to put up a formidable challenge to the ruling TMC in the parliamentary elections this year.

The saffron party has been trying to cash in on the atrocities on Hindus in the neighbouring country to start its run-up to the 2026 assembly elections in West Bengal. The party has taken to the streets to protest the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das, who emerged as one of the frontline leaders of the agitation by the Hindus of Bangladesh against atrocities on the minority community over the past few months since the collapse of the erstwhile Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina on August 5 this year.

With the exporters and importers of West Bengal responding to the call of the Bangiya Hindu Samiti, international trade across the Petrapole-Benapole border was suspended on Monday to protest the alleged persecution of Bangladeshi Hindus and Indians in Bangladesh.

“The 24-hour suspension of trade was just a trailer of what's going to happen next,” said Adhikari, adding: “If the attacks on Hindus and their religious establishments in Bangladesh do not stop by next week, we will impose a five-day trade embargo. After the beginning of next year, we will stop trade for an indefinite period. We will see how the people there live without our potatoes and onions.”