Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday linked West Bengal’s Partition-era history with its current political landscape, saying the state was finally moving along a development path aligned with the cultural identity envisioned in 1947.
Addressing an event in Hooghly district to mark “Paschimbanga Divas” (West Bengal Day), Modi said attempts were made during Partition to include the entire undivided Bengal in Pakistan and alleged that the state’s past had been “whitewashed” for political reasons.
“Today’s youth must know how efforts were being made to make the entire state a part of Pakistan. After Independence it was necessary to take forward the emotions with which Bengal was saved. But efforts were made so that the people of Bengal forget the date [June 20] and the emotions attached to it,” he said.
On June 20, 1947, legislators from the Hindu-majority districts of undivided Bengal voted in favour of Partition and for joining the Indian Union in the Bengal legislative assembly, a development that eventually paved the way for the creation of West Bengal.
Modi credited Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee for spearheading the movement opposing proposals to include the whole of Bengal in Pakistan. He accused the Congress of bowing “before conspiratorial forces” during Partition and later trying to erase the history and significance of “Paschimbanga Divas”.
“When efforts were being made to make the whole of Bengal a part of Pakistan, Congress had bowed before conspiratorial forces. It was then that Syama Prasad Mookerjee raised his voice against it… When there was a conspiracy to separate the whole of Bengal from India, a separate West Bengal was created to thwart those designs,” he said.
This was the first time that a state government in West Bengal marked the day. In 2023, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to observe Bengali New Year’s Day, also known as Poila Baisakh, as the state’s foundation day on April 15. The same year, former chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to then governor CV Ananda Bose urging him not to hold an event at the governor’s house on June 20.
“We in West Bengal…have seen the Partition as a result of unleashing of communal forces that could not be resisted at that point of time. The state was not founded on any particular day, least of all on any 20th of June. Contrarily, the state was formed through the infamous Radcliffe Award,” Banerjee wrote in the letter.
Incumbent chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, however, hailed the decision to observe June 20 as West Bengal Day. “After several long decades, for the first time, our nationalist government, inspired by the great ideals of Bharat Kesari Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, is officially observing ‘West Bengal Day’…,” the BJP leader posted on X.
Seeking to draw a link between the BJP coming to power in the state and what he described as the original vision behind the creation of West Bengal, Modi said: “This time, ‘Paschimbanga Divas’ is even more special. The dream that was envisioned for a bright future of Bengal after Independence, today we are witnessing it turn into reality.”
The Congress and TMC rejected Modi’s remarks.
“The Prime Minister is trying to fool the people of Bengal by giving a distorted history. The predecessors of the BJP had helped the British. His propaganda wont work in Bengal,” said Congress leader Soumya Aich Roy.
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh also accused Modi of distorting facts. “There is no fixed foundation day for West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee consulted historians and educationists, who suggested Poila Baisakh as the state day. The BJP is now politicising the issue,” he said.
During his visit, Modi also laid the foundation stone for several development projects and released the 23rd instalment of the PM-Kisan scheme worth ₹18,880 crore. He said the “double-engine government” had begun working at “superfast speed” to put West Bengal on a path of recovery and development.
“Decisions are being taken [by the BJP government] at lightning speed and work for stalled projects has restarted. It is in this direction that today, foundation stones have been laid and inauguration done of projects worth thousands of crores of rupees,” Modi said. Modi also wrote a letter to Adhikari on Saturday in which the Prime Minister stated that the centre will extend full support to the state. “I urge the West Bengal government to set short, medium and long-term targets as well, such as what will be achieved in the next few years, next decade and so on. This way, we will get a realistic assessment of the ground covered and at the same time it will strengthen the collective efforts of 140 crore Indians to build a Viksit Bharat by 2027,” Modi wrote in the four-page letter.
