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Mandir-Masjid: How competitive faith politics recasting Bengal's 2026 poll battle
As West Bengal gears up for its elections, a notable uptick in religious symbolism is evident. Political rallies are increasingly hosted at temples and mosques, diverting attention from critical issues like job creation and migration challenges. This shift is amplifying communal differences, with leaders strategically using religious identity to cement their voter appeal.
As West Bengal heads into an election year, a spate of temple-mosque announcements, scripture spectacles and date-sensitive symbolism is pushing the state's politics into unfamiliar territory, sharpening communal polarisation in a borderland shaped by partition memories, demographic anxieties, and a coexistence periodically tested by political mobilisation.
From bordering Murshidabad district to the planned township of Salt Lake, on the eastern fringes of Kolkata, faith has emerged as the most audible idiom of political mobilisation, often drowning out conversations on migration, jobs, prices and governance, as rival players test how far religious assertion can stretch Bengal's electoral grammar ahead of the assembly polls.
The immediate spark came on December 6, which marks the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition.
Suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir pressed ahead with laying the foundation stone of a mosque "modelled on the original Babri structure" in Murshidabad's Rejinagar, under unprecedented security cover.
Kabir argued that the political moment itself had shifted.
"People are trying to pretend that faith has no place in Bengal's politics. That phase is over. Whether one likes it or not, questions of identity, dignity and religious rights will shape the next election. The next elections will be fought on questions of honour and belonging. Anyone denying that is not reading the ground," Kabir told PTI.
In nearby Banjatiya in Murshidabad, BJP leaders also conducted groundwork rituals for a Ram temple, framing it as resistance to what they called minority appeasement. Elsewhere, the saffron party sharpened its pitch around cultural assertion, while the TMC moved quickly to distance itself from Kabir's actions.
"Bengal's culture has never supported competitive religious politics. The party believes faith is personal and politics must remain inclusive. We will not allow Bengal to be converted into a laboratory for polarisation experiments borrowed from elsewhere," TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.
The response underlined the party's political tightrope - managing a minority base that accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the electorate, while arresting signs of Hindu drift amid intensifying identity politics.
On December 7, Kolkata's Brigade Parade Grounds, the most politically loaded public stage, hosted a massive Bhagavad Gita recital projected as "five lakh voices chanting together".
Senior BJP leaders and nationally known monks filled the dais, even as organisers insisted the event was spiritual rather than political.
Kabir was quick to announce a similar Quran recital event in Murshidabad district.
Political scientist Maidul Islam said this is a very new phenomenon in Bengal politics. "Leaders like Humayun Kabir and parties, like the BJP and AIMIM, are consciously trying to import Hindi heartland narratives into Bengal. Dates, symbols and mass religious performances - these are not accidental," he told PTI.
BJP state president Samik Bhattacharya said that when one side uses religious symbolism to consolidate its vote bank, the "other cannot be expected to remain silent".
"The politics of selective secularism will no longer work in Bengal. For decades, Hindu sentiments were pushed to the margins of the state's political discourse. This is about to change," he claimed.
For decades, Bengal's political mobilisation rested largely on class, language and welfare, with religion operating as a secondary identity marker. Even during earlier communal flare-ups, mainstream parties avoided sustained, competitive religious symbolism.
However, Murshidabad, where Muslims form a numerical majority and memories of Partition displacement remain alive, has emerged as the epicentre with 'mandir-masjid' politics increasingly dominating public conversation.
In Salt Lake, posters appeared announcing an Ayodhya-style Ram temple complex with a hospital, school and old-age home. The proposed foundation ceremony is slated for Ram Navami next year, signalling how religious symbolism is now being projected deep into spaces associated with governance and power.
"When temple-mosque politics moves from border districts to planned urban centres, it signals ambition, not spontaneity," political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said, adding that it reflects an "attempt to normalise religious assertion as mainstream electoral language".
The Congress and the Left, reduced to the margins in Bengal, have warned of historical repetition. "We know where competitive communalism leads," state Congress chief Subhankar Sarkar said, recalling the countrywide violence that followed the Babri demolition in the 1990s.
Bengal is a border state born of Partition, its social fabric shaped by refugee influx, demographic churn and episodic violence. While it never fully followed the Hindi heartland's template of sustained religious polarisation, the scars remain real and politically exploitable.
"When economic distress dominates daily life, sudden 'mandir-masjid' politics signals a deliberate narrative shift," political scientist Subhomoy Moitra said.
With the assembly elections months away, Bengal appears headed into a season of competitive symbolism, where mosques and temples are no longer merely places of faith, but strategic markers on a polarised political map.
Whether this moment hardens into lasting division or recedes under electoral pragmatism may shape not just individual political fortunes, but the future trajectory of Bengal's political culture itself.
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Source: EconomicTimes
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