“Bengal is ready for BJP’s Bhadralok Hindutva. Bhadralok Marxism is on its way out”, The Print, March 16, 2024:

“The ‘Bhadralok Marxist’ has a new challenger. The ‘Bhadralok Hindutvavadi’, who is breathing down their neck in Kolkata’s talk circuits, TV studios and West Bengal’s political circles. Ever since Calcutta High Court Judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay resigned and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, the state and its polity have taken serious note of a rising new breed of politicians; leaders who want to de-hyphenate the Bhadralok from the Marxist by hyphenating religiosity and nationalism with Bengali exceptionalism.

Commenting on Gangopadhyay’s induction into the BJP, the party’s former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta wrote: “Abhijit Ganguly’s decision to join the BJP in Bengal is momentous. For long, the Left—and now the TMC [Trinamool Congress]—has perpetuated the spurious notion of the ‘progressive’ Bengali mindset being at odds with the BJP”.

Dasgupta said Justice Gangopadhyay is, in many ways, a “typical Bengali—with mild leftist inclinations” and his joining may just be the BJP’s “breakthrough moment in its bid to win over the Bengali bhadrolok….”

Read the full article at Theprint.in