Had West Bengal not been created, we would have suffered the fate of Bangladesh’s Chinmoy Das, says Suvendu Adhikari

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. File | Photo credit: ANI

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday (September 12, 2026) said that if West Bengal was not created as a separate homeland for Bengali Hindus, the people of the state would have suffered in the same way as Chinmoy Das of Bangladesh.

“I thought if we had not become a part of India because of the struggles of Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Swami Pranavananda (founder of Bharat Sevashram Sangh), our fate would have been similar to Chinmoy Prabhu’s,” Mr Adhikari said at the inauguration of Ganesh Puja in Kolkata.

Mr Adhikari also highlighted the plight of jailed Bangladeshi Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Prabhu after photographs of him grieving next to his mother’s mortal remains emerged in the media. “Chinmoy Prabhu’s tears moved ‘sanatanas’ across the world,” said the Chief Minister.

Chinmoy Das is a Bangladeshi Hindu monk who has been in prison for almost two years on charges of allegedly disrespecting the country’s national flag. He was granted a five-hour parole this week to attend his mother’s funeral. The chief minister attended several protest rallies as the leader of the opposition when the monk was arrested in October 2024.

During the event, Mr. Adhikari targeted both the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress government, accusing them of destroying the cultural traditions of Bengali Hindus in the state and vowing to restore religious and cultural traditions.

Mr. Adhikari said that during the 34 years of Left Front rule, traditional Hindu practices were ignored and forgotten. Criticizing the Left parties for calling the festival ‘Sharadotsav’ instead of Durga Puja on Saturday (September 12), the Chief Minister criticized the books being sold at the Left parties’ stall in the pandal.

“They used to sit far from the Durga Puja pandals under the red tent. Books by Vivekananda, Lokeshvarananda and Bharata Sevashram are not available. Books on the history of the creation of West Bengal are not available. Books on the partition of India on the basis of the two-nation theory,” he said, adding that foreign books by Karl Marx were not available.

Referring to the 15-year Trinamool Congress regime, Mr Adhikari said there was “jamaatification” of West Bengal where Durga Puja pandals were inaugurated in Pitri-Paksha, which was considered inauspicious, and the immersion schedule was changed as it coincided with Muharram.

“The former chief minister whom I defeated twice said at the Netaji Indoor Stadium that the immersion dates coincided with Muharram and therefore they will be changed. You cannot do that. Whatever was written in the almanac should be followed,” he said.

The Chief Minister said that his government is trying to bring back the traditional calendar and practices associated with Durga Pujas. Mr. Adhikari said that in an effort to revive the Durga puja tradition, he announced that no community pujas would be inaugurated before Mahalaya and Ashtami (the eighth day of the festival) would be a dry day.

Published – 13 Sep 2026 08:15 IST