Tathagata Roy, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) former state president in West Bengal and former Governor of Meghalaya, on Saturday, 18 July cautioned his party against allowing the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to capitalise on the political turmoil gripping the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the wake of its landslide defeat in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections. Roy issued the warning through a social media statement, urging the BJP to remain watchful of any ideological resurgence by the left.

Roy's Warning to BJP

In his post, Roy stated: 'The BJP must keep a vigilant eye to ensure that the CPI(M) does not sneak into the political vacuum created by the implosion of the Trinamool Congress today. The simple truth that ‘Communists mean fraud’ still fails to sink into the minds of many of us, that is, Bengali Hindus.'

Roy argued that Hindu CPI(M) leaders have historically been eager to court Muslim voters, citing an example of a Hindu CPI(M) leader from West Bengal publicly consuming beef, while contrasting it with a prominent Muslim CPI(M) leader who was, according to Roy, never seen consuming pork. Roy presented this as evidence of what he described as selective appeasement within the party's ranks.

The Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Episode

Roy also revisited a significant episode involving the late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the last Communist Chief Minister of West Bengal. According to Roy, in 2002, Bhattacharjee had publicly stated that anti-national propaganda was being carried out in several madrasas located in the state's border areas — remarks that were, Roy noted, published across newspapers, including the CPI(M)'s own party organ, Ganashakti.

'The next day, under pressure from the CPI(M) leadership, Bhattacharjee had to deny the statement,' Roy said. He argued that subsequent events had vindicated Bhattacharjee's original claim, pointing to recent raids conducted by the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh Police at two madrasas in North 24 Parganas district as corroboration.

CPI(M)'s Current Position and Revival Efforts

The CPI(M)'s political standing in West Bengal has been reduced to near-irrelevance after decades of dominance. In the recently concluded assembly elections, the party managed to win just one seat — a stark contrast to its years of uninterrupted rule in the state.

Notably, however, the party's leadership has since pivoted to issue-based street politics. The CPI(M) has been actively opposing the eviction of hawkers under the current West Bengal government led by Suvendu Adhikari, a strategy widely seen as an attempt to rebuild grassroots relevance. Critics argue this approach could allow the party to re-enter public discourse through welfare-centric mobilisation, precisely the kind of opening Roy is warning the BJP about.

The Broader Political Context

The TMC's implosion following its assembly election defeat has created an unusual political vacuum in Bengal's opposition landscape. The BJP, which had emerged as the principal challenger to the TMC in recent years, now faces a two-front challenge: consolidating its own gains while preventing a left revival that could dilute its vote base among Hindu Bengali voters. Roy's intervention signals internal BJP concern that the party may not be moving fast enough to occupy that space. Whether the BJP heeds this warning — or whether the CPI(M)'s ground-level activism gains traction — will shape West Bengal's political trajectory in the months ahead.