Violent Endgame

The shocking murder of BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s closest aide Chandranath Rath on a public road in Madhyamgram, immediately aftert he BJP scored a historic landslide in the West Bengal Assmebly election by toppling Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, is not merely another political killing in the state. It is the logical culmination of a culture of gangsterism that has flourished under Mamata Banerjee’s rule for over a decade and a half. Bengal has long witnessed violence. The Left perfected intimidation. But the Trinamool Congress has industrialised it.

Rath was not some obscure political worker caught in the crossfire of local rivalries. He was one of Adhikari’s closest associates, a former Indian Air Force man who became integral to the BJP’s organisational machinery in Bengal. He handled sensitive electoral operations, strategic coordination and back-end management during some of the fiercest political battles in the state, including the campaign that humiliated Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur. His murder could hardly be called random.

The unanswered questions are chilling. Was Rath himself the target? Or was this a message meant for Suvendu Adhikari, who is touted as the next Chief Minister of the state?

That is what makes this murder so sinister. The BJP’s sweeping victory should have marked the beginning of democratic transition and political sobriety. Instead, Bengal appears trapped in the dying convulsions of a violent regime unwilling to accept defeat. This has been embodied in the violent rhetoric of top TMC leaders including Mamata’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, who has openly expressed his defiance of the Centre and threatened revenge. The scenes unfolding in Bengal today resemble less the aftermath of an election and more the collapse of an entrenched authoritarian order desperately clinging to relevance.

Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee are responsible for the poisonous climate they have nurtured. For years, Trinamool leaders and foot soldiers operated with near-total immunity. Political opponents have regularly been beaten, intimidated or worse murdered.

Even more dangerous has been the cynical communal appeasement woven into this politics. The rhetoric surrounding Mamata Banerjee’s defeat has exposed deeply troubling fault lines. Statements from extremist voices across the border in Bangladesh, openly urging Mamata Banerjee to lead West Bengal in breaking away from India, have become routine. The TMC government that spent years pandering to sectarian elements has weakened institutional authority while emboldening dangerous actors who increasingly view the state as politically penetrable and strategically vulnerable.

The next BJP government cannot behave as though Bengal merely requires administrative correction. It requires moral and institutional reconstruction. The criminal-political nexus built over fifteen years must be dismantled without hesitation. Every politically protected gangster, extortionist, riot-instigator, and murder operative must face relentless prosecution.

Chandranath Rath will not stand beside Suvendu during the oath-taking ceremonies of a new political era. But his murder may yet become the moment Bengal finally recognises the monstrous system that has ruled it for far too long.