TMC threatens to stop doles and funds in areas that supported BJP

The heat and dust of the just-concluded general elections may have settled across most of India, but West Bengal—which saw the Trinamool Congress defy all predictions and increase its seats to 29 while the BJP’s tally dwindled to 12 and the Congress to one—is still grappling with post-poll violence. Along with that, with a clear aim to further decimate the BJP’s support base in the lead-up to the 2026 Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress leaders are publicly holding out threats to stop benefits of government schemes to areas which supported the BJP.
Within days of the Lok Sabha election results being declared on 4 June, leader after leader of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), from north Bengal to south, is explicitly saying that the seats and areas which supported arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party, will have to “pay a price”.
Udayan Guha, who is the TMC strongman in north Bengal, where the BJP retained six out of seven seats, has proclaimed that developmental funds from Nabanna (state secretariat) will not go to this region. Addressing a party programme in Dinhata to felicitate Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, TMC’s winning candidate in Cooch Behar, who bested former Union Minister of State for Home Nisith Pramanik, Guha was heard saying: “Why should we give funds when the people here are repeatedly voting for the bohiragotos (outsiders)?”
Guha, ironically, is the North Bengal Development Minister in Mamata Banerjee’s Cabinet.
Kunal Ghosh, the TMC spokesperson, spoke on the same lines in Medinipur in south Bengal which had also rebuffed the party.
Priyanka Tibrewal, who is a lawyer and a BJP leader, told The Sunday Guardian: “Since the time Sandeshkhali hit the headlines and Sheikh Shahjahan was arrested after enjoying Mamata’s protection and hospitality for 56 days, I received complaints that the state government had stopped Lokkhir Bhandar for the women on Sandeshkhali who dared raise their voice against Trinamool’s atrocities.”
Senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said: “I agree that such dole schemes have a level of attraction among certain sections of the people. But in reality, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is cheating the people of rural Bengal through these schemes by keeping them deprived of the bigger fruits of economic development.
“She is paying a monthly amount of Rs 1,000 to the women in the name of Lokkhir Bhandar and in this process she is paving the way for her brothers in the party to loot crores of rupees. The people of West Bengal have started realising that this is cheating in the name of dole schemes, but surely, we will have to go a long way in convincing a larger mass on this count,” he added.
Such complaints are pouring in mainly from those areas where the BJP has won seats or has a substantial vote share.
The defeat of BJP candidates has already triggered erosion in the saffron camp in many places across West Bengal.
Three days after the 4 June results, following the defeat of Nisith Pramanik, the BJP candidate who was also the Cooch Behar MP, in the just-ended Lok Sabha elections, BJP members of two panchayats in Dinhata sub-division, Bhetaguri-II and Matalhat, where the party was in power, switched to TMC. This helped the TMC secure a majority in both the rural bodies.
Sources say that BJP supporters have little choice.
Threats, attacks and looting of BJP’s supporters’ houses are going on unabated in many parts of the state.
The post poll violence started even before the date of results, with Hafizul Sheikh, a BJP karyakarta being hacked to death in Nadia on 2 June. Once it was abundantly clear by the evening of 4 June that the TMC would be ahead of BJP, unabated violence started on the lines of what transpired in 2021 after the Assembly elections.
Though the Calcutta High Court has repeatedly extended the stay of Central forces in order to tackle post-poll violence, the extent of violence coupled with total lack of cooperation by the bureaucracy has rendered the 40,000-odd paramilitary jawans ineffective and directionless.
Several BJP workers in West Bengal, who are staying at a temporary camp near the party’s office in Kolkata since the declaration of the Lok Sabha election results, have alleged that they are unable to return to their homes, fearing attacks by members of the TMC.
According to the BJP workers, at least 280 people from various districts are staying at Maheshwari Sadan, opposite the party office in central Kolkata.
Amit Gayen, a BJP booth agent from Canning in South 24 Parganas district, claimed that five karyakartas from his village have been living in the temporary shelter since the Lok Sabha election results on 4 June since they face threats from TMC workers.
“I have been here since 4 June. I am associated with the BJP. I messaged the police, I mailed them, but it was of no use. The TMC workers wanted to kidnap us, but we weren’t at our houses before the polls. Rations are being stopped. My mother lives alone, neighbours are not talking to her because I am associated with the BJP,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
Another BJP worker, Jamal Ali Mollah from Minakhan area in North 24 Parganas, stated that he ran away from his home on 1 June.
“I fled my village before 4 June itself. I ran away on 1 June. I have a pond which the TMC people have taken over. They are directly threatening that our bones will be broken if we are found,” Mollah alleged.
Manu Naskar from South 24 Parganas’s Jharkhali, who stays at the facility with her husband and family, stated that they wanted to go back but were concerned about safety.
“I came on 12 June, but my husband came first on 4 June. We are being threatened. TMC has bike-borne gangs that are threatening BJP families, hence we had to flee. My daughter-in-law is here. We want to go back, but what about security and safety?” asked Manu, whose son was a BJP booth agent.
Dinabandhu Mandal from Canning West claimed that this was not the first time they were facing threats from TMC workers. He called it a repetition of 2021.
“This happens every time. In 2021, they vandalised my house. Now again. Police don’t take complaints. They say nothing will happen,” he said.
BJP’s central leaders, including Biplab Deb and Ravi Shankar Prasad, recently visited the camp. The families are still waiting for assurance of safety to return to their homes.
Biswanath Chakraborty, professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University, told The Sunday Guardian: “After coming out tops in the Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee is trying to press home the advantage for the 2026 elections before the BJP can recover and regroup from the shock results. The tactics include threats of violence, buying out disaffected local BJP leaders and supporters, using its agency I-PAC to sow confusion and threats of stopping dole and development works to areas which supported the BJP. Unfortunately, apart from moving the High Court and making some sporadic noises, the BJP is yet to get its act together.”