The West Bengal polls are shaping into a fierce political contest. As the BJP mounts a serious challenge to Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, the issues of jobs, development, and security dominate the narrative. The West Bengal polls also highlight questions of illegal migration, Bengali Asmita, and governance failures. From Sandeshkhali to RG Kar, and from communal riots to infrastructure apathy, the West Bengal polls will decide whether voters stick with TMC or seek change with BJP. Oneindia’s Pankaj Mishra brings you ground voices with Upamanyu Bhattacharya, a BJP leader from the state.
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#WestBengalPolls
#BJPvsTMC
#BengalElections2025
#PoliticalBattle
#OneindiaVoices
~HT.178~GR.282~GR.124~PR.100~
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NewsTranscript
00:00So West Bengal heads towards crucial polls next year.
00:03Political battle lines are sharply drawn.
00:06The BJP readies a fierce challenge to Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress,
00:11bowing to usurge years of what it calls dominance.
00:17What Bengal truly needs today?
00:19Is it development, jobs and security?
00:22And will it define the people's choices in these high-stakes elections?
00:26One India will be bringing you voices from a cross-section of political parties,
00:31social workers, activists and, of course, the all-important common man.
00:37Today, to begin with, we are speaking with Upamanyu Bhattacharya.
00:41He is a BJP member from West Bengal.
00:43Upamanyu, welcome to One India.
00:46Namaskar.
00:47Namaskar.
00:49Upamanyu, West Bengal is obviously going to the polls.
00:52So what is the mood of the state and are the people really satisfied with TMC's performance?
01:00See, the mood of the state, people are very, very angry.
01:04People are also very sad.
01:06And unfortunately, there is a sense of a little bit of despondency as well.
01:11Now, the thing is that, you know, next month we have the Durga Puja coming in.
01:15So before Durga Puja, on the day of Mahalaya, the entire Mahishashura Mardini that, you know,
01:23when we explain that, it is like the victory of good over evil is supposed to happen.
01:29And what the entire state of West Bengal today is thinking, that just like Mahishashura,
01:34the Asura was, you know, who used to just change his shape and, you know, be an evil structure
01:40in the entire world, just like that, the present government, the present government,
01:45the evil of the present government will be slayed in the next year's 2026 elections.
01:50That is the mood of the West Bengal today.
01:53Right.
01:54Obviously, the festive season that is coming up and a lot of political significance to being
02:00attached to what you have also mentioned.
02:02And it has been time and again used by, you know, the opposition and the government alike.
02:08Even TMC has been referring to the same connotations.
02:12Obviously, the cultural significance is also pretty huge there.
02:16For Mamta Benerji, last few months, last year, hasn't been a very successful stint, I would say.
02:23Several issues marring the state in the last few months.
02:27R.J. Kar incident happened, Sandesh Kali happened, communal rights were also there.
02:32Do you think, if I may start to ask you straight forward, has Mamta Benerji failed the state?
02:40She has not only failed the state, she has also been very arrogant about her failures.
02:45You see, that's the biggest problem.
02:47See, common man, they are very simple.
02:50In Bengal, especially in West Bengal, there has been this thing where one political party
02:55has been, you know, once it's selected to power, it has the habit of staying in power for some time.
03:00And that has gotten into Mamta Benerji's head.
03:03So, you see, crimes can happen.
03:05But what happens after the crime is the most important thing.
03:09Prevent, there is absolutely no intent by the government to solve any of the issues
03:15that has been there in West Bengal for a long time.
03:19And on top of that, she has created issues.
03:23See, the R.J. Kar case, it was a political murder.
03:26It was a political rape.
03:28After that, the aftermath of it, today, the parents are being hounded by the TMC's own spokesperson, Kunal Ghosh.
03:37They are being hounded.
03:38The parents are the victim.
03:39Then, in South Kolkata, there was this rape case inside a college.
03:46The perpetrator was someone from the very influential in the TMC's own student ecosystem.
03:53Sandesh Khali.
03:55Again, the perpetrators belonged to the Trinamul Congress.
03:58They were corrupt.
03:59And they were also, you know, indulging in malpractices with a lot of women of that area.
04:02So, all of these together, along with the biggest problem that exists in West Bengal today
04:08is the complete devastation of the education system.
04:12See, West Bengal, we Bengalis have this, you know, tendency of, you know, acquiring more and more knowledge.
04:19Hence, education is very important to us.
04:21So, this SSC scam which has happened and the aftermath of it, right?
04:26The 26,000 jobs have been, you know, invalidated by the Supreme Court.
04:31After that, you know, new, this year, people, the students have not been allowed to,
04:42till now, admissions have not taken place.
04:45Okay?
04:45They are just, it has been delayed for so long.
04:48No other state, the entire country doesn't have this problem.
04:52Why there has been such a delay in the admissions of the students?
04:55Just because Mumta Banerjee wanted Muslims to remain in the OBC category.
05:00You know, only because of that, only because of one OBC judgment by the Supreme Court.
05:06They waited for so long, it's been the start of September.
05:09The day after tomorrow, it's 1st September if I'm not wrong, right?
05:13So, even now, the admissions have not taken place.
05:16So, students, youth, women, and the entire state, like you take any category, any cohort of people, nobody is happy.
05:24This is quite a critical issue here, Rupamanyu, because, and we need to have an audience with TMC on this,
05:32that issues like jobs, issues like education, that to higher education, I mean,
05:37not all can afford to step out of any state and go to bigger cities, which is not recommended also.
05:44I mean, if the state is capable enough, and the kind of bhadra-lok, the concept of bhadra-lok that you are referring to in the Bengali community,
05:54that needs to be preserved.
05:56And education is one of the strongest pillars of that belief system in West Bengal.
06:03I mean, this is really surprising that you mentioned about the reservation for the OBC community and Muslims being retained there.
06:11This brings me to another very vital aspect of West Bengal and how it impacts the demography.
06:18The TMC government, do you believe, has ignored the illegal migration issue and despite its clear impact on the demography of the state?
06:31See, they have not just ignored the issue.
06:33What they have actively done is helped to perpetrate the issue even further.
06:39See, for so long, India's borders on the Eastern Front were very porous, right?
06:43And those are legacy issues of the earlier Congress governments.
06:46But once this new government came in in 2014, a lot of the border on the Assam side has been, you know, those borders have been sealed.
06:56Now, in West Bengal itself, the root cause of the problem is that BASF, which is the Border Security Force,
07:02they have not been allowed to take land into their own hands and construct lines like border lines on the borders which were initially porous.
07:12Now, because of that, too many illegal immigrants have been coming in the state.
07:16And now the issue of illegal immigration is no more the problem of West Bengal alone because those immigrants, those illegal immigrants who are coming in,
07:25they are eventually going out to other states as well.
07:29So the problem which is happening in West Bengal is becoming a major headache for the entire country, for the national security of the entire country.
07:37We are suffering.
07:39We have been suffering for so long.
07:41But our sufferings are now having an impact on the entire nation.
07:45And TMC is the single party.
07:47It is the single party in this entire country, which is actively helping in this entire process.
07:54And it is only because of their own very narrow short-term gains of a vote bank consolidation are they doing this.
08:03Well, to say the least, you know, the efforts like NRC and be it the SIR process that is going on in Bihar,
08:16when we talk about such high-scale, large-scale influx of illegal immigrants and no check on that,
08:23and so much so that you are saying that even BSF is not allowed, then this couldn't be more riskier than anything else for a border state like West Bengal.
08:34Upanyu, you know, we spoke about Bhadra Lop, we spoke about Bhadra Manush, but has TMC or has TMC been able to justify its Bengali asmita, at least, in West Bengal?
08:48See, TMC has been harping on one Bengali asmita for a very long time.
08:56But, you know, there is this thing in politics where one issue can only benefit one political party one time.
09:03You know, all the people cannot be fooled all the time.
09:06Okay, so this time when they are harping on this entire Bengali asmita thing, it's falling flat because of many reasons.
09:13First is Bangladesh. The situation in Bangladesh is such that there is great political instability,
09:19which has raised a lot of, you know, organized violence against the minorities in Bangladesh who happen to be Hindus.
09:27So Hindus in West Bengal are worried that if the situation remains the way it is in West Bengal right now,
09:35and if it further deteriorates, then we might also see a situation like Bangladesh,
09:39where there is organized violence against one community.
09:43We don't want that.
09:44So it is that the government has been harping on Bengali asmita.
09:50When has it been harping on Bengali asmita?
09:52When all its other issues on governance have been a complete failure.
09:57Now that this SIR issue, and there has been some pushback against illegal immigrants from Bangladesh in other states,
10:04it is then that the TMC in this state has realized that now it has one issue in its hands.
10:11It is trying to wake up this issue, trying to wake up this Bengali asmita issue by saying that migrant workers,
10:17Bengali migrant workers are being targeted in other states.
10:20But that's a complete lie.
10:22It has been, that lie has been debunked a couple of times by, once by Gurgaon police, once by Maharashtra police,
10:28that no, Bengali migrants are not being targeted.
10:31It is the illegal immigrants who are being targeted.
10:34People of West Bengal are very aware that the very people who allow these illegal immigrants to come and settle in West Bengal,
10:40how can they heart on Bengali asmita when we are the sufferers of all that is happening through the government's efforts
10:49to make this illegal immigration even more successful.
10:53So this time, people are not buying into her agenda.
10:56People are not buying into this entire Bengali asmita thing.
10:59Rather, if you see that the West Bengal government's actions has been against the Bengali language,
11:07it has been against Bengali speakers, Urdu is being promoted on a state level scale.
11:14You see, in 2018, in 2018, two Rajes and Tapos, there are two people who were protesting against Urdu imposition.
11:22They wanted Bengali teachers in their college in North Bengal.
11:27They were killed.
11:28They were killed.
11:30So, there is no...
11:31TMC cannot harp on Bengali asmita.
11:33People are not buying into it.
11:35It is their last ditched effort, but it's falling flat this time.
11:40Except for some noise on social media, people are not buying into it on the ground.
11:45Well, absolutely.
11:46I mean, you know, the worst or the best part about these social media voices is that it raises a storm,
11:55but then it dies down also.
11:57And dying down doesn't mean that the issue is solved,
12:02but maybe they find, you know, they attach less importance to that particular cause
12:08and then they shift to another pressing issue.
12:11But having said that, demographic changes are very risky for any state's, you know, development also.
12:20And why I say risky?
12:21Because with illegal immigrants coming in from one particular state
12:27and then moving on to other parts of the country also,
12:30that is something that creates a lot of confusion and a lot of trouble also
12:34for obviously for those who have been living there for ages now.
12:38One final question, you know, talking about Calcutta as the metropolitan city
12:44and city of joy, as we call it.
12:47There is an ongoing case in Calcutta High Court as well
12:51about the alleged apathy from the state government
12:55as far as the city's infrastructure is concerned.
12:58You are also one of the complainants, if I'm not wrong.
13:01Could you please give some more light on it?
13:05You see, Calcutta had the first metro in this country.
13:09We are very fortunate that way, right?
13:11But upon its expansion, we have seen a couple of times
13:15that there have been a lot of problems in expanding the metro to various places.
13:19Now, Calcutta is also growing.
13:21We are not growing as far as like if we are compared to Mumbai or Delhi,
13:25the way those cities are expanded, but we are also growing
13:29and we have had a successful IT sector standing in, you know, sector 5 near the airport.
13:35Now, this orange line basically is supposed to connect that sector 5
13:41and that IT sector area and the airport area with South Calcutta directly.
13:45So people who go for, who are salaried class,
13:49they will be most, you know, benefited by this entire orange line.
13:53Now, there has, the entire line has been constructed except for a 366 meter stretch,
14:00which is in Chinri Ghatta.
14:02People in Kolkata know it.
14:03It's a very, it's a high, like it's a traffic junction, like it goes four ways.
14:08Now, that junction needs to be closed for like two weekend nights for the work to happen.
14:13And it's 366 meter gets, stretch gets constructed.
14:16But already there has been a delay of about three years in this metro line.
14:20After that, the Kolkata police and the state government have not allowed NOC
14:24to carry on that work over there.
14:27Simply, there is no reason because metro authorities had already constructed
14:31a diversion for the traffic to, you know, go when the work is supposed to happen.
14:39So I had filed a PIL in the, in the Calcutta High Court
14:43against the state government asking for that NOC.
14:46You know, we want a resolution to it.
14:48So after that, we, what we have seen is that the state government had filed an affidavit
14:54stating that an underpass needs to be built, which is in no way connected to the entire case.
15:00So again, I have taken a solution.
15:03I have asked the Kolkata metro authorities whether we can get the complete line operational,
15:09but keep that contentious station close till what they are asking, till that underpass is built.
15:14So I think this is a classic example of how the state government has been obstructing development
15:20in the state, how they are actively not letting projects happen,
15:24how they are actively obstructing central projects happen.
15:28So this is, my fight is against that.
15:30And we all want one thing.
15:31We all want resolution.
15:33We all want development of the state.
15:34We all want development of the city.
15:36Right.
15:37Upamanyu, obviously, you know, those who can see things clearly and those who can actually
15:45make suggestions, more than welcome is what the state government should be saying to them
15:53rather than blocking them.
15:55And I hope that this particular issue finds its resolution very soon and something that
16:00is towards the welfare of the people.
16:02Well, thank you so much, Upamanyu, for speaking to Monanya.
16:05Upamanyu Bhattacharya there, joining us from Kolkata, is a BJP member.
16:10And we were talking about what lies ahead for the city of Joy and for the state of West Bengal
16:16as it heads towards the all-important elections in 2026.
16:21We'll be bringing you more voices on the show.
16:23Namdesh, thank you for watching this broadcast.
16:25Upamanyu, thank you once again.
16:28Namaskar.
16:29Namaskar.
16:30Namaskar.
16:31Namaskar.
16:32Namaskar.
16:49Namaskar.
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