Students in masks of the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at an election rally in Calcutta in April 2019. Bengal was already feeling the need of a strong regional party. It knows that a national party may have pressing priorities other than pushing for Bengal’s resurgence. A strong regional party but one that can both confront and collaborate with the Centre is the need of the hour in Bengal. Since the BJP is committed to extend the NRC exercise to West Bengal, Banerjee will get an opportunity of political mobilization by projecting the measure as ‘anti-Bengali’.

Source: The Telegraph July 17, 2019 11:58 UTC