There were those who wrote us off but we did not pay heed to that: Locket Chatterjee on BJP’s Bengal win

Decoding the historic victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2026 Assembly elections in West Bengal, the party’s state General Secretary, Locket Chatterjee, said that before the polls a lot of people claimed that they will not be able to end Mamata Banerjee-led TMC’s rule, but “we were sure we would because we witnessed what the people were doing and saying on the ground.”

In an exclusive interview with The Statesman’s Dola Mitra, the BJP leader said, “In the state elections of 2021 our number of seats in the West Bengal Assembly went up from three to 77. It was a huge gain, though we didn’t win the state. There were those who wrote us off but we did not pay heed to that. We did not lose our mental strength. We kept our will power intact and just fought on. We were 77 in number and formed a strong Opposition led by Suvendu Adhikari Ji. Before the 2026 state elections lot of people said we will not be able to do it but we were sure we would because we witnessed what the people were doing and saying on the ground.”

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On being asked about the secret of her success, she suggested that it was “all party work.”

“You have to remember that leadership entails being able to work with different types of people and take everyone along. We also had the invaluable support of our leaders. Of course, Narendra Modiji, Amit Shahji and the tireless efforts of our leaders especially Suvendu Adhikariji. Not to mention our party’s people,” Chatterjee said.

So, how did the BJP perform this incredible feat of a landslide victory? She said, “For the last 12 years, that is, since 2015, I am in BJP and in 12 years I have seen how gradually BJP has been growing from the ground up. At the time, when I joined, I noticed that people would be apprehensive of the BJP (‘log BJP ko leke darr te the’). I was an actor… one of the actors who joined BJP from TMC. I was in the West Bengal Women’s Commission….I was a member. At that time I noticed how BJP was growing steadily. I witnessed it with my own eyes. In 2016 I had contested the Assembly Elections from Birbhum’s Mayureshwar. I lost the election but I had got 37,000 votes.”

She added, “After that in the 2018 Panchayat elections, BJP fought hard and we won 7,000 seats. Out of these 2,500 were women. In 2017 I was the Mahil Morcha President. For four years, that is until 2020, I was the Mahila Morcha President. During that time the sheer number of women joining the BJP was something to witness…it was phenomenal. As the Mahila Morcha President I went to Delhi with them and we were congratulated. It was simply unbelievable how so many women had joined us in huge numbers.”

During the exclusive conversation, Chatterjee even recalled how she and other party leaders were always on the move and busy establishing connection with the people of the state.

“Day and night we travelled to various corners of the state. Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura, Midnapore… we were everywhere. We did not even have police protection. Often it was just the driver and us women. We did not bother with all that. These trips and tours revealed the extent to which people wanted the BJP. Where ever we stopped people came up to us. The women especially expressed a lot of hope that there is going to be some change for the better. We rarely went home and seemed to be always on the road. It all paid off in the Panchayat elections – though over a lot of fighting, a lot of bloodshed and dead bodies. Then in the 2019 general elections, there was a lot of expectations from the BJP and we did really well. We surpassed the expectations. We got 18 seats,” she said.

She even highlighted the incident when Union Home Minister Amit Shah came to meet them.

“I recall an incident during this time in Purulia. There were three murders in Balarampur. We positioned ourselves there for nine days straight in protest. We were not allowed to stay in hotels so we would go across the border and spend the nights in Jharkhand. The then regime thought that these are women and they would just go home if they face too many obstacles but they were wrong. At this time Amit Shah Ji visited us. He had other meetings but he dropped in in support. We were really charged up by this. He held a rally in a huge field, which was attended by 50,000 to 100,000 people who turned up on their own,” she said.

On the upcoming challenges for the Suvendu Adhikari-led government in West Bengal, the BJP leader said that there is a “lot of work to be done.”

“As you can see in just the first few days we are going headlong into it. Whether it is infrastructure that has been stuck in a limbo or corruption which has infiltrated every sector from health to education or the public welfare schemes which need attention, we are on it,” she said.

She further asserted that the party has “never been against any community.”

“Our motto is, ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’. This applies to all Indians. For instance, we never look at religion when the welfare schemes are given, do we? Everyone has equal rights. There is no discrimination,” she stated.

Also, Chatterjee highlighted that Bengal is “strategically a very important state,” since it has international borders with several countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.

“In order to sustain the strength of a nation it is important to have connection with the land. For instance, the BJP government at the Centre, which now has power in the state of West Bengal too, can implement its plans to fence the borders in order to prevent illegal infiltration. A double engine government is good. It has never been easy to work with the earlier regime,” she concluded.