‘Not the time for Babri-Mandir’: BJP shifts tack to development in Bengal bypoll

On a small makeshift stage in Begunbari area of Rejinagar, BJP Bengal president Samik Bhattacharya stands beside party candidate Shankharavh Sarkar, as others jostle for space. The public meeting has come at the end of an impressive road show involving over a hundred motorcycles.

The crowd gathered around the stage is predominantly Muslim, with others looking on from balconies and rooftops. “In the last elections, our candidate lost by a huge margin. Minority voters were not with us. But this election is different,” says Bhattacharya.

Days after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that the October 6 bypolls were a “test” for the minority community, and that they should come with the BJP, Bhattacharya says: “Eighty percent of Muslims stay in villages, and their monthly income is Rs 5,000 or lower. Participation of Muslims in government jobs is also low. The situation needs to change.”

BJP candidate Shankharavh Sarkar during campaign at Rejinagar assembly by elections along with Samik Bhattacharya (Express photo)

While the BJP government is accused by opponents of stoking anti-minority sentiments in West Bengal to win this year’s Assembly elections and to consolidate its hold in the state since then, for the bypoll in Rejinagar where nearly 70% of the population is Muslim, the party has changed its narrative to development. It is also directly reaching out to Muslims, in a manner rarely seen before in the state.

Bhattacharya, seen as the “moderate” face within the state BJP, says: “In these last six months under our government, has there been a single riot?… This is not the time to do Babri Masjid-Ram Mandir. For the next 20 years, it will be our government both at the Centre and in the state. You will have to stay with us. You will have to choose.”

A day later, during his tour of the constituency, Adhikari underlines the same at a public meeting in Shaktipur.

Bhattacharya’s reference to Babri Masjid is deliberate. In the April 2026 Assembly elections, the Rejinagar seat was won by Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) leader Humayun Kabir, who laid the foundation for a replica of the mosque in the constituency.

Kabir got nearly double the votes of his BJP rival, getting 51.62% of the votes, to the BJP’s 27.02%, and the TMC’s 17.43%.

The Rejinagar bypoll was necessitated as Kabir resigned from the seat and retained the other constituency he won from, Nouda.

Kabir’s son Gulam Nabi Azad is the AJUP candidate for the Rejinagar bypoll now. There is little sign of him though in the constituency, with Kabir claiming “intimidation” by the BJP administration, including slapping of cases, and saying the AJUP would campaign only online and on social media.

With the BJP wooing Muslims and Kabir away, the contest could go either way – particularly as the anti-BJP corner is crowded. Apart from Kabir, who used to be in the Trinamool Congress before floating the AJUP ahead of the Assembly polls, it includes the Congress, CPI(M) and the two TMC factions. All have put up candidates from the Muslim community.

BJP candidate Shankharavh Sarkar during campaign at Rejinagar assembly. (Express photo)

At the site of Kabir’s Babri Masjid replica, along National Highway 10, construction is on, with earthmovers at work and bricks lying in a pile. “Around Rs 10 crore have come in as donations,” says Kabir, sitting in a small office at the site.

He is “being forced to take a backseat”, says the AUJP leader, who seems subdued and far removed from his once firebrand image. “Apart from fresh cases against me, old cases are being revived against my party leaders. Twenty-four of them have been arrested. Twelve of us got bail, but police kept calling me for interrogation, and harassing my followers. That is why I decided that neither my son nor I will campaign.”

As per Kabir, the “harassment” has been on since May, when the government asked him to drop Babri Masjid from the name of the replica. “I refused. My security has been withdrawn.”

About the other candidates, Kabir says he is not worried. “It is a straight fight between the BJP and me. And if free and fair polls are held, my son will surely win. Other parties… all will have their deposits forfeited… The BJP is trying to break the Muslim vote and consolidate Hindus behind it. But fair elections will show that people are with us.”

AJUP leader Humayun Kabir at the site of Babri Mosque replica in Rejinagar. (Express photo)

Mamata TMC candidate Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, who is campaigning in Loknathpur, a short distance from where villagers are gathered under a single halogen light, also talks of police “threatening” their voters. In the other Bengal seat where bypoll will be held on October 6, Nandigram, the Mamata TMC candidate withdrew at the last moment, which has sharpened the party’s attack on the BJP.

Chowdhury has won the Rejinagar seat thrice earlier – the 2013 bypolls (when he was with the Congress), in 2016 (again with the Congress), and in 2021 (as a TMC candidate). In the April elections, Mamata fielded Ataur Rahman in place of Chowdhury, and he lost.

Chowdhury says their trump card is Mamata. “We are saying she is the only alternative to the BJP. The new CM only speaks and works for Hindus… Mamata Banerjee was the only one who protested when the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise robbed the voting rights of lakhs of people.”

Ahead of the bypolls, while refusing urgent hearing on a petition regarding voters in the two bypoll seats who are deleted from the SIR, the Supreme Court observed, “These are only by-elections.”

Rabiul Alam Chowdhury candidate for Mamata All India Trinamool Congress campaigning at Rejinagar. (Express photo)

Yes “the government will not change through this vote”, Chowdhury says. “But this is a chance for minority voters to highlight their issues and take a stand.”

He also accuses Kabir of representing the flip side of the BJP, in doing communal politics.

Nadia MLA Alifa Ahmed, who is accompanying Chowdhury, questions the EC for denying the Mamata TMC the party’s long-held symbol. “However, everyone knows the TMC means Mamata Banerjee. The workers and voters are with us… The rebels (the other TMC faction) are the BJP’s B team.”

At one of the BJP offices in Baharampur town, Sarkar sits surrounded by party leaders and workers, as people rush around arranging flags and banners. The BJP candidate – the party’s district president who is contesting for an Assembly seat for the first time – says he is confident of support from all sides.

“There is no Hindu-Muslim, no minority-majority. The people of Rejinagar, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, all have decided that they want colleges, factories, a bridge, and the only person who can give them is Suvendu Adhikari and the BJP government. It is an election for development, not communal divide,” Sarkar says.

A local BJP leader says the election is important for them for this reason. “We already have a consolidated Hindu vote bank in the area. Now we are going house to house and talking to Muslims. If we win, we will achieve something which we never got before – the Muslim vote,” says the leader.

The BJP is also counting on the fact that all other candidates are Muslims, he admits. “This will further prevent consolidation of the Muslim vote bank.” Apart from the Mamata TMC’s Chowdhury, the candidates from the minority community include the CPI(M)’s Md Sayeed, the Congress’s Abdullahil Kafi and the rebel TMC’s Safiuzzaman Sheikh.

Abdul Sheikh, 50, a farmer, says they are watching the developments closely. “We have seen all that has happened since the BJP government came. But now it is proposing something different… Let’s see.”