From Syama Prasad Mookerjee to BJP’s Bengal Victory: The Story Behind Modi’s Gesture

At a historic moment for West Bengal politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned the spotlight away from power towards sacrifice. Moments before Suvendu Adhikari took oath as Bengal’s first BJP Chief Minister since Independence, Modi walked up to 98-year-old BJP veteran Makhanlal Sarkar, embraced him and touched his feet before thousands gathered at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Ground.

The image instantly became one of the defining visuals of Bengal’s political transition. While the swearing-in ceremony marked the BJP’s electoral breakthrough in a state long dominated by the Left and later the Trinamool Congress, Modi’s gesture carried a deeper political message. The BJP wanted the moment to belong not only to today’s leadership, but also to the generation of workers who built the organisation brick by brick when the party barely had a presence in Bengal.

Soon after the ceremony, Modi invoked the legacy of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and one of Bengal’s most influential nationalist figures. In a post on X, the Prime Minister said Bengal’s first BJP government was a continuation of Mookerjee’s vision and the struggles of workers who dedicated their lives to the nationalist cause.

Modi described Sarkar as a “devout nationalist” who worked alongside Mookerjee and was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir during the agitation linked to hoisting the Indian tricolour there in 1952.

The Man Who Witnessed BJP’s Earliest Struggles in Bengal

For most younger BJP supporters, Makhanlal Sarkar may not be a familiar name. Within the party organisation, however, he represents a generation that kept the ideological flame alive during decades when Bengal’s political landscape was hostile to the BJP and its predecessors.

Party leaders say Sarkar was among the workers who remained closely associated with Syama Prasad Mookerjee during his final Kashmir campaign in the early 1950s. In 1952, Sarkar was arrested while participating in the movement linked to the integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union.

Long before the BJP emerged as a dominant national force, Sarkar was already working to expand the party’s organisational base in north Bengal. After the BJP’s formation in 1980, he became organisational coordinator for West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts. Within a year, he reportedly helped enrol nearly 10,000 members, giving the party an early foothold in regions where it had little political influence.

He later served seven consecutive years as district president, a rare achievement in a party structure where leadership roles generally rotated far more quickly.

West Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya also recounted another story often cited within party circles. According to him, Sarkar was once arrested during the Congress era for singing a patriotic song in Delhi. When asked to apologise before a judge, he refused and instead sang the song again inside the courtroom.

Bhattacharya said, “The judge, moved by Sarkar’s conviction, directed the police to arrange a first-class railway ticket for his return journey and provide him Rs 100 for expenses.”

BJP’s Bengal Victory Framed as an Ideological Milestone

The BJP’s victory in the 2026 Assembly elections, where it secured 207 seats and ended 15 years of Trinamool Congress rule, marks one of the biggest political shifts in Bengal since Independence. Yet Saturday’s ceremony showed that the BJP does not want this victory to be viewed merely as an electoral upset.

By publicly honouring a veteran karyakarta linked to the Syama Prasad Mookerjee era, the party sought to present its Bengal triumph as the outcome of decades of ideological struggle, organisational discipline and nationalist politics.

For the BJP, Makhanlal Sarkar’s presence at the ceremony symbolised continuity. Before the celebrations of power came recognition for those who spent decades building the movement when victory in Bengal seemed impossible.