Kolkata: The BJP’s “outsider” tag in West Bengal, which had already weakened over the past one and a half years, ostensibly withered away as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah started campaigning for their party candidates. Both focused on hyper-local issues to move away from the high-decibel “outsider” narrative that hit the party hard in 2021.The signs of change in the narrative started showing as Modi launched his campaign in Bengal in June last year. In July, 2025, in Durgapur, he started with a ‘Jai Ma Kali, Jai Ma Durga’ homage. Modi promised to uphold BJP’s commitment to Bengal’s cultural and industrial development.In Feb again, Modi, marked his campaign with homage to ‘Maa Kali’. The PM had already shot off a letter to electors in Bengal, urging people to vote for a change. This letter, too, started with a prayer to the Goddess. The changing narrative reverberated when Delhi CM Rekha Gupta and Union minister Annapurna Devi addressed gatherings in Kolkata.In the past couple of months, Modi held 19 rallies and two road shows across 42 organisational districts in Bengal. Shah held 29 rallies and 11 road shows in 39 organisational districts. During the campaign, fish emerged as a central political narrative with Modi focusing on ‘fish project’ and boosting local production in Bengal. The food-focused campaign, BJP leaders said, helped counter Trinamool’s claims that BJP would restrict non-vegetarian diets in Bengal. Images of central BJP leaders eating fish were circulated and Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma challenged Mamata Banerjee to hold a fish-eating contest with him. Several BJP candidates even campaigned with a fish in hand.In March, Modi spoke about Bengali asmita and posted online a Shyama sangeet, a song written by Ramprasad.During his rallies, Shah invoked Bengal icons from across socio-cultural fields. The BJP, riding the wave of 150th year of Vande Mataram, fielded Soumitra Chattopadhyay, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s descendant, as a candidate. Shah mentioned Tagore and Vivekananda to establish the party’s cultural roots here, often claiming the icons were “neglected” by previous govts.Shah in his speech positioned BJP as a party that would empower the people of Bengal and protect the cultural and historical ethos here, claiming Trinamool only tried to “protect infiltrators”. He even announced the next CM would be a “son of the soil”.In his last outing here, Modi stopped at a jhalmuri stall in Jhargram and had a packet of muri, apparently demonstrating his familiarity with Bengal street culture. He took a boat ride on the Hooghly and visited Thanthania Kalibari. After the campaign, he went to Sikkim, where he played football, reminding Bengal of its favourite sport.
