It has been four days since the far-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party won the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. As the previous Cabinet led by Mamata Banerjee has officially been dissolved as of Thursday, May 7, the state remains volatile with multiple incidents of violence reported following the election win.
Videos on social media show Bengal taken over by BJP karyakartas (party workers), waving saffron flags, chanting Jai Shri Ram, while applying sindoor on artefacts, breaking down historical statues, renaming street names and in one instance even bringing down a bulldozer on offices of All India Trinamool Congress along with a meat shop.
On May 4, the counting day, a Hindutva mob was recorded vandalising Haji Ali Restaurant in North 24 Parganas in police presence, raising concerns about the state administration’s complicity in violence. A video of the incident surfaced on Friday, May 8.
Another clip going viral on social media shows a small stage decorated with BJP flags situated right outside a mosque while supporters danced to loud music around it.
TMC on Thursday shared a video on X where BJP party workers “defaced” portraits of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Mother Teresa and other prominent figures by applying sindoor on their foreheads.
A group of Hindutva men made threatening remarks outside the Azad Hind College in Domjur, Howrah, barring female students from wearing burqas, saying, “This is not a madrasa.”
TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee posted a video on X, admonishing the open threats. “Such threatening remarks by individuals allegedly backed by BJP-linked hooligan elements expose the dangerous rise of aggressive majoritarian politics after assuming power,” he wrote.
Banerjee said students from the same college were facing intimidation by local miscreants, with muslim women allegedly being targeted and harassed.
“When women from minority communities are targeted, and their religious identity is openly attacked in educational spaces, it raises serious concerns about their safety, dignity, and constitutional rights in Bengal.”
Siasat.com had previously documented 10 anti-Muslim attacks in parts of the now BJP-led state. As more accounts of such incidents emerge, debates have intensified regarding the response from the party’s high command, who have remained silent and denied participation in the post-poll violence.
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