BJP West Bengal President Samik Bhattacharya has urged the Congress and CPI to set aside ideological differences and come together in a broad-based alliance aimed at removing the ruling Trinamool Congress from power in the 2026 Assembly elections.
Speaking at an event on Kolkata’s Red Road to commemorate the birth anniversary of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Bhattacharya said the political landscape in Bengal needed urgent intervention through a collective front. He claimed the ruling dispensation was encouraging what he termed as “Islamic fundamentalism” and “fanaticism,” and asserted that the fight to preserve Bengal’s pluralistic heritage could not be a solitary endeavour.
Bhattacharya’s remarks were made before a large gathering of BJP workers, where he positioned the proposed alliance not just as an electoral strategy but as a moral and ideological necessity. He warned that the state was heading towards what he described as a dangerous threshold, which, in his view, could be reversed only through a unified stand by all anti-TMC forces.
The call for opposition unity reflects a shift in the BJP’s approach in Bengal, where the party had largely maintained a combative posture against both the Congress and the CPI. Bhattacharya’s comments mark a tactical reorientation in the BJP’s campaign playbook, aimed at recalibrating alliances to counter the entrenched organisational strength of the TMC across rural and urban Bengal.
Congress leaders in Bengal have so far refrained from committing to a formal tie-up with the BJP, although state unit members have privately admitted that ground-level coordination cannot be ruled out in the face of TMC dominance. The CPI, for its part, has remained vocally critical of the BJP but has shown openness to electoral adjustments, particularly during the 2021 Assembly elections, when seat-sharing agreements were attempted despite limited success.
Bhattacharya’s proposal comes amid continued tension between the TMC and the BJP over law and order issues, minority appeasement narratives, and accusations of administrative high-handedness. The BJP has been attempting to reposition itself in Bengal after setbacks in the 2021 Assembly elections, during which the TMC secured 213 out of 294 seats, pushing the saffron party to a distant second place with 77 seats. Since then, the BJP has struggled with internal dissent, defections, and leadership transitions.
With the 2026 elections drawing closer, the state unit has intensified its grassroots campaigns while simultaneously focusing on outreach to disillusioned Congress and Left voters. Bhattacharya’s remarks underscore this dual-track strategy—re-engagement with the base while seeking support from traditional anti-TMC constituencies.
The TMC leadership dismissed Bhattacharya’s remarks as an act of desperation. Senior party figures said the BJP’s appeal for an alliance revealed its inability to challenge the TMC independently and accused the BJP of trying to polarise voters along communal lines. They also pointed to the BJP’s internal leadership crisis in the state and its weakening cadre base as factors driving the call for external support.
However, BJP leaders maintain that the appeal is not about numerical arithmetic alone but about forming what they called a “moral consensus” against what they allege is TMC’s misrule. Bhattacharya’s comments were echoed by other state BJP leaders during the event, who argued that without a common minimum programme that unites anti-TMC parties, Bengal’s democratic institutions would remain at risk.
The BJP’s calculation seems to rest on a political matrix that includes mobilisation against alleged appeasement politics, linking governance issues to broader questions of identity and national unity, and consolidating Hindu votes in districts that have experienced communal flashpoints in past years. However, political observers point out that any anti-TMC alliance would have to reconcile serious historical and ideological fault lines among its constituents, especially between the BJP and the Left, to avoid electoral contradictions.
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