Here are the major highlights and takeaways from Banerjee’s visit.

The ‘outsider’ narrative

Banerjee, whose administration has faced backlash over its handling of the April 11 violence in Murshidabad and its aftermath, repeatedly emphasised the importance of unity and peace, telling people “danga rukbo (will stop riots)” and pleading with them to resist any instigation.

At a public meeting in Suti, which witnessed violence last month, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson alleged that rioters were being “brought to Bengal from outside” and reiterated her appeal to people to “not listen to the BJP or any group and get instigated”. “Don’t divide people. If you do these things, then throw me out of your heart. I do not want riots; I do not like riots,” she said.

In the days after the violence, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had alleged that “those who instigated the violence, local people did not recognise them, they came from outside”. “We think there is a bigger conspiracy. We are demanding a detailed investigation,” he added.

The TMC had effectively used the “outsider” narrative in the run-up to its win in the 2021 Assembly elections too, painting the BJP as a “party of outsiders” and projecting Banerjee as “Bengal’s daughter”. This time her emphasis was not just on the BJP but also on “fundamentalist outfits”.

BSF, Amit Shah the aim

The Bengal CM who has also earlier criticised the alleged role of the BSF and other central agencies in “engineering unrest” in the district by facilitating the entry of outsiders and enabling cross-border influx from Bangladesh repeated the line of attack during her visit.

“Why did the BSF fire shots? If BSF hadn’t fired shots, the incident would not have flared up the next day … Those who are inciting riots are enemies of Bengal,” the CM said outside the district magistrate’s office on Monday.

Without naming anyone, the CM targeted an “acting PM” whom she asked to “take care of the borders, instead of creating communal tension and nuisance”. Following the violence last month, Banerjee had accused Amit Shah of “harming the nation most for his own political agenda” and requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rein him in.

This is not the first time the TMC has targeted the BSF, accusing it of working to undermine her elected government. Earlier this year, Banerjee accused the central force of allowing infiltration from Bangladesh to destabilise the state, calling it the Centre’s “nefarious blueprint”. Her remark came weeks after Shah said that “infiltration from Bangladesh” was disrupting peace in Bengal.

Ahead of the 2021 elections, the Bengal government alleged that the BSF was terrorising people in the border areas into voting for the BJP. After returning the power, the TMC administration also opposed the Centre’s decision to extend the BSF’s jurisdiction up to 50 km inside the international border, up from the 15 km limit that existed earlier.

Appeal to migrant labourers

Banerjee contrasted this “outsider” narrative with the alleged mistreatment of locals in other states. Murshidabad and Malda are two of the districts from which a huge number of the youth migrate to other states. She appealed to them to return to the state.

“I have heard that migrant labourers from Bengal are being tortured (in other states) if they speak in Bengali. We have received several complaints … Here in Bengal, people from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Odisha, and many other places reside. Around 1.5 crore migrants call this home. We cherish them all. If we hold such affection for the migrant labourers who come here, then why can’t other states extend the same warmth to our migrant workers?” the CM said. The states she mentioned in her speech are all BJP-ruled ones.

“There is no need to beg,” Banerjee told the youth of Murshidabad residing in other states. “Come back here and enlist your name in the migrant labourers’ list,” Banerjee said, directing the district magistrate to look into the matter.

Last week, TMC MPs Yusuf Pathan and Samirul Islam wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs on the issue of alleged ill-treatment of migrant workers from the district amid a crackdown on Bangladeshi nationals living illegally in several states, including Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi and Odisha.

Continuing challenge

The CM said that though she had come to meet the families of those affected by the violence, the BJP had “taken them away”. She was referring to the family of Haragobinda Das, who was killed along with his son Chandan in the Samserganj area of Murshidabad on April 11. The Das family has been in Kolkata for the past week, living in the home of a local BJP leader in the city’s Salt Lake area. They moved the Calcutta High Court on Monday, alleging police intimidation and seeking the protection of the Central forces.

This underscored the challenge that the TMC continues to face in countering the Opposition’s narrative that it failed to protect Hindus because of its Muslim appeasement politics. With the CM skipping the violence-hit villages in Samseganj, the violence epicentre, this is only likely to get stronger.

Secular credentials

To counter the Opposition’s charge of “appeasement politics”, Banerjee not just mentioned the Jagannath temple in Digha but also how her government had got a “skywalk installed in Dhakineswar in Kalighat” and carried out “development projects at Baba Taraknath (Tarakeshwar)”.

Targeting the BJP, she said on Monday, “They (BJP) say, I don’t believe in dharma (religion)… I don’t need to learn from them. When anyone asks what my gotra is, I say ‘maa, maati, manush’… I have only one religion – the religion of humanity.”

Amid tension with BJP-ruled Odisha over the Jagannath temple, the CM dismissed as “baseless and fabricated” the allegations that surplus sacred neem wood from Jagannath temple in Puri was used in crafting the idols of the shrine in Digha.