Anti-national forces and those insulting saffron will be uprooted from Bengal: CM Adhikari

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Wednesday that anti-national forces and those insulting "saffron" will be uprooted from the soil of the state.

He led a "Gerua Sanman Yatra" (saffron pride walk) in Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon to protest against anti-national slogans and graffiti on the Jadavpur University (JU) campus and at the end of the rally he issued a strong note of cautions for the students' groups in JU raising slogans like "Kashmir Mange Azadi" within the varsity campus.

"I have taken an oath to uproot those people raising slogans like 'Kashmir Mange Azadi' or giving red salutes to slain Maoist leader, Kisanji in JU, which is a center of excellence. You all know that in 2011, I took an oath to dethrone Communists from West Bengal. Again in 2026, I took another oath to dethrone the pro-Jamaat forces from the state. Now I promise that saffron will be everywhere in the great land of great people Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Swami Vivekananda and Rishi Aurobindo," the Chief Minister said.

The "Gerua Sanman Yatra" started from Golpark Crossing in South Kolkata on Wednesday, with Chief Minister Adhikari sporting a saffron kurta, leading the rally. It ended at 8B Bus Stand Crossing, which is close to the JU campus.

West Bengal Commerce and Industries Minister Tapas Roy and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator from Jadavpur, Sarbari Mukhopadhyay, also participated at the rally.

The participants in the rally also included a number of monks.

At the end of the rally, first the participants, including the Chief Minister, sang the full version of national song 'Vande Mataram'.

Thereafter, Chief Minister Adhikari, delivered a short speech where he vowed to uproot anti-nationalist forces and also those insulting the saffron.

This is not the first time that the Chief Minister had given such cautions.

Last month, CM Adhikari participated in a programme at the university on Raksha Bandhan, where around 10,000 people sang the full version of "Vande Mataram". He had issued a similar note of caution at that time.

JU had been in the headlines last month over clashes between activists of the CPI-M's student wing, the Students' Federation of India (SFI), and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The confrontation triggered protests by both student groups and led to further unrest on the campus.

Subsequently, the BJP organised a protest meeting outside the Jadavpur university, which was addressed by CM Suvendu Adhikari.

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