Hindus in Bengal must unite, can't be split by language or caste, says BJP's Suvendu Adhikari

Kolkata: With the West Bengal Assembly elections just months away, senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday sharpened his political pitch, urging Hindus to "unite" and warning that the community "cannot afford to be divided by language and caste."

Addressing a BJP rally later in the day at Englishbazar town in Muslim-majority Malda district, Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, drew from Mothabari violence in April this year to urge his audience to close ranks.

"The Hindu community must be united," he said.

"Some people say religion is personal and festivals are for all. My message is: religion is personal, and protecting it is also your personal responsibility. We divide ourselves into Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra; others exploit this. You must not be split by language or caste."

Alleging that Hindus were being targeted in several pockets of the state, he claimed, "We are being finished. We are being obstructed from practising our religion. Where we are fewer in number, attacks are organised against us."

Those meant to uphold Raj Dharma are not helping because of vote-bank and appeasement politics, the BJP leader said.

Adhikari said, "We don't want to hurt anyone, we believe in coexistence but why should we be attacked?"

He also took aim at the TMC's repeated invocation of "Bengali pride" and its charge that the saffron camp represents "outsiders" in West Bengal's political turf.

Without naming the ruling party, he said such binaries were crafted to fracture the Hindu vote along linguistic sentiment.

"Dividing people in the name of language is dangerous. Those who play this card are weakening society from within," he remarked.

The Leader of Opposition also urged supporters to join the December 7 Geeta chanting programme at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Grounds, saying: "Five lakh voices will unite to recite the Geeta."

The Englishbazar assembly seat is part of the Malda South Lok Sabha constituency. In the 2024 Parliamentary polls, the BJP candidate secured 58.86 per cent votes in this assembly segment, while the Congress nominee polled 22.55 per cent, and the TMC candidate got 15.53 per cent votes.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP's Sreerupa Mitra Chowdhury won the seat with 49.97 per cent votes, defeating the TMC's Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, who bagged 40.60 per cent. The BJP victory margin crossed 20,000 votes.

Adhikari's pointed call for Hindu consolidation, delivered from a politically sensitive, minority-dominated belt, underscored the BJP's early attempt to redraw the battle lines ahead of the high-stakes Assembly contest.