BJP aims to rekindle Mamata's 'Nano' ghost with Modi’s symbolic Singur rally

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will focus on what it considers the weakest link of Mamata Banerjee’s 15-year rule in West Bengal — her government’s inability to attract major investments — during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to the state, the first of 2026 when it will hold elections.

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At the heart of this narrative is the economic symbolism of Singur, where Modi will address a massive rally on Sunday (January 18), nearly two decades after a Tata Nano small-car project was abandoned amid land acquisition protests that propelled the Trinamool Congress (TMC) to power, ending 34 years of the Left rule, in 2011.

It may be mentioned here that Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat when the Tatas decided to move their car plant out of Bengal in 2008 and welcomed them to his state, where a Nano factory was set up in Sanand.

Modi on two-day visit to Bengal

The prime minister is scheduled to embark on a two-day visit to the state, travelling to Malda on Saturday (January 17) to flag off India’s first Vande Bharat Sleeper service, linking Bengal (Howrah) and Assam (Guwahati), another poll-bound state.

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Going by the buzz within the BJP, it is apparent that the party is more keenly awaiting Modi’s programme the next day in Singur in Hooghly district, located not too far from the state capital Kolkata. He will lay the foundation stone and flag off several development projects in Singur worth more than Rs 830 crore.

BJP eyes mileage from Mamata's Singur 'failure'

BJP leaders, including state president Samik Bhattacharya, have been actively engaging with villagers in Singur and the surrounding areas, discussing the rally and the party’s messages on industrialisation and the region's development.

As part of the saffron party's campaign efforts for the upcoming public rally, its leaders and workers have also been distributing invitation letters in local villages, urging residents to attend the event.

For the BJP, the choice of venue is steeped in larger political symbolism. It is a pointed reminder of what they describe as lost opportunities.

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“Where Tata was ready to build a car manufacturing unit, we saw politics choke industry. Under Mamata Banerjee, industrial policy in Bengal has been an obstacle, not an enabler,” said the party’s state president. He claimed that “if the BJP forms a government in the state, Tata and other big investors will come back to Singur and drive job creation”.

BJP had supported Mamata's agitation then

Senior BJP leaders of Bengal have repeatedly projected the Singur rally as a statement of the party’s intent, though political observers recall that the BJP had previously supported Mamata’s anti-land acquisition agitation against the former Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led government, and that party’s then national president Rajnath Singh had even shared with the TMC leader the protest stage built off the national expressway in Singur, connecting Kolkata and Delhi.

The TMC was a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance then, and Mamata was the bloc's only Lok Sabha MP from Bengal.

But in the changed political equation, the BJP is eager to reap the political dividend of the Singur agitation’s fallout, despite having supported the movement at the time.

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“We want the youth of Bengal to realise that jobs are created by factories, not slogans,” the state Opposition leader, Suvendu Adhikari, who was once a close lieutenant of Mamata in the anti-land agitations against the Left in the mid and late 2000s, said, emphasising the party’s focus on tangible industrial growth.

Bengal has done well in several sectors

Independent economists acknowledge that Bengal’s economy has exhibited resilience in sectors such as services, retail and MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises), which have helped sustain growth and employment.

The state’s GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product) is projected at around Rs 20.31 trillion for 2025‑26, with services accounting for a large share of output and jobs.

In recent years, Bengal has made noticeable strides in the tourism sector, which has become a key driver of service-led growth.

According to the India Tourism Data Compendium 2025, the state recorded nearly 31 lakh foreign tourist arrivals in 2024, up about 15 per cent from the previous year, making it the second most popular international destination in India, after Maharashtra.

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Export activity in areas such as engineering goods, gems and jewellery, and leather products has grown, with total exports in FY25 standing close to Rs 97,156 crore.

Heavy industry and foreign investment remain low

Yet, heavy industry and foreign investment remain a sore point for the TMC regime so far.

According to official data compiled by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into Bengal between October 2019 and December 2024 totalled about Rs 13,945 crore, a figure that pales in comparison with other states.

Cumulative inflows into states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka during the same period have run into tens of thousands of crores of rupees, with Maharashtra alone drawing close to Rs 6.9 lakh crore in FDI.

Another benchmarking tool, the NITI Aayog Export Preparedness Index 2024, released this month, placed Bengal, India’s sixth-largest economy, at 12th among all Indian states in terms of export preparedness.

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While the comprehensive report places traditional manufacturing and export powerhouses such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat at the forefront, Bengal’s position underscored the need for stronger linkages between export readiness and industrial capacity, a gap that the TMC’s opponents are now eager to politically exploit.

These statistics form the core of the BJP’s critique that Bengal’s industrial growth has lagged behind its peers, that big capital is not flowing into the state’s manufacturing base, and that promises made at successive Bengal Global Business Summits have remained largely on paper rather than on factory floors.

No big-ticket projects in Mamata era

The BJP’s campaign rhetoric often jars the TMC by challenging its leaders to produce “one photograph of Mamata Banerjee cutting a ribbon at the inauguration of a major industrial plant,” a jibe designed to underline the perceived absence of big‑ticket projects.

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As the TMC focuses its campaign on the alleged harassment of Bengali migrant workers in BJP-ruled states, a narrative aimed at stirring Bengali sub-nationalist sentiment, the BJP is determined to reframe the debate by highlighting the state’s lack of industrialisation.

The message the BJP wants to convey is that if migrants are leaving the state because jobs are scarce, it is because the TMC’s industrial ambitions never materialised.