BJP’s ‘Hindu first’ poll plank went from Bengal to UK. Will it help the party in 2026?

When a protester asked, ‘Mamata ji, anyone for Hindus?’ at Kellogg College, Bengal watchers were reminded of the BJP’s core campaign strategy for 2026—Hindu angst against minority appeasement.

If you watched the drama that unfolded after Mamata Banerjee’s recent speech at Oxford University’s Kellogg College, you cannot be faulted for thinking that the BJP’s 2026 West Bengal election campaign reached the United Kingdom. Thanks to the event headlined by Banerjee – who had once expressed a desire to turn Kolkata into London – Kellogg College got a taste of Kolkata street politics.

The West Bengal chief minister was speaking on ‘Social Development – Girl, Child and Women Empowerment in West Bengal’, when members of the audience interrupted her speech. They started asking her pointed questions on the investment proposals worth “lakhs of crores” that she said had come Bengal’s way, and about the RG Kar rape and murder case that rocked West Bengal last year.

But when a protester asked, “Mamata ji, anyone for Hindus?”, Bengal watchers were reminded of the BJP’s core campaign strategy for the 2026 assembly elections—Hindu angst against minority appeasement.

Banerjee’s response – “I am for all – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians” – could neither placate the heckler nor her detractors back home. Would it, then, convince the secular Bengali to stand by her?

One election, one issue

The state’s principal Opposition party has trained its guns on Mamata Banerjee, focusing exclusively on her government’s alleged Muslim appeasement. Sharing a video of an injured man on X, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, wrote: “The Jihadis are out of control and are plundering, bashing and vandalising in an unabated manner. Their targets are Hindus, whoever it may be. Look at the condition of the driver of a goods vehicle carrying cottage cheese. He was bashed up brutally for no fault of his own.”

This is not the first time Adhikari has unabashedly attacked Banerjee for appeasing minorities and ignoring the plight of Hindus. He and other senior BJP leaders have been bringing it up since the RG Kar protests thinned out, and targeted attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh made international headlines.

Source: The Print