Monidipa Bose - Dey (মণিদীপা)@monidipadey
Seeing some posts claiming Bengalis will lose their identity, if BJP comes to power. These people are forgetting or choosing to ignore one major historical fact - BJP is a Bengali party in its origin.
It’s often overlooked that the roots of the BJP trace back to Bengal. BJP’s ideological predecessor was founded by Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a prominent figure from Kolkata.
Mookerjee was already a well known public figure, before he formed his own party. He served as Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, was elected to the Assembly as a member of the Indian National Congress in the 1930s, and later joined the Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar, eventually becoming its President until 1946.
After independence, he became part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s first cabinet, and also contributed to the Constituent Assembly. However, following various ideological differences, especially over the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, he resigned from the cabinet.
In October 1951, with support from the RSS, Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), choosing a lamp as its symbol, to contest India’s first general elections.
In the 1951-52 elections, the BJS secured three Lok Sabha seats. Notably, two of these seats were from West Bengal. Mookerjee himself from South Kolkata, and Durga Charan Banerjee from Jhargram (Midnapore). The third seat was won by Uma Shankar Trivedi from Chittor, Rajasthan.
This meant that two-thirds of the party’s parliamentary presence initially came from Bengal.
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) transitioned into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980.
If BJP does indeed win, it will be homecoming for the party. A return to the land of its birth.
