Modi: West Bengal now on 1947 development path

Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted on Saturday that West Bengal is finally charting a course of development that aligns with the cultural identity envisioned in 1947, the year of India's partition.

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Today’s youth must know how efforts were being made to make the entire state a part of Pakistan. After Independence it was necessary to take forward the emotions with which Bengal was saved. But efforts were made so that the people of Bengal forget the date [June 20] and the emotions attached to it.

Speaking in Hooghly district during an event to mark "Paschimbanga Divas" (West Bengal Day), Modi invoked the state's Partition-era history. He claimed that efforts were made during Partition to annex the entire undivided Bengal into Pakistan. He also alleged that the state's past had been deliberately "whitewashed" for political reasons.

Modi highlighted that on June 20, 1947, legislators from Hindu-majority districts of undivided Bengal voted to partition the region and join the Indian Union. This decision was crucial for the creation of West Bengal. He credited Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee for opposing proposals to incorporate all of Bengal into Pakistan and accused the Congress party of yielding to "conspiratorial forces" and later attempting to obscure the significance of "Paschimbanga Divas."

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When efforts were being made to make the whole of Bengal a part of Pakistan, Congress had bowed before conspiratorial forces. It was then that Syama Prasad Mookerjee raised his voice against it… When there was a conspiracy to separate the whole of Bengal from India, a separate West Bengal was created to thwart those designs.

This year marked the first time a state government in West Bengal officially observed June 20 as West Bengal Day. This contrasts with the previous administration's stance; former chief minister Mamata Banerjee had written to the governor in 2023, urging against an event on that date, stating the state was not founded on June 20 but formed through the Radcliffe Award amidst communal violence.

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We in West Bengal...have seen the Partition as a result of unleashing of communal forces that could not be resisted at that point of time. The state was not founded on any particular day, least of all on any 20th of June. Contrarily, the state was formed through the infamous Radcliffe Award.

However, incumbent chief minister Suvendu Adhikari praised the current government's decision to observe the day. He posted on X that, after many decades, a "nationalist government," inspired by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, was officially observing "West Bengal Day."

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After several long decades, for the first time, our nationalist government, inspired by the great ideals of Bharat Kesari Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, is officially observing ‘West Bengal Day’…