In Bengal, Congress bets on 'BC Roy legacy' for 2026 solo Assembly election run
Seeking a political reset, the Grand Old Party invokes nostalgia of the 'golden era' to woo voters, even as critics point to the darker shadows of the 1970s
The Congress in West Bengal is attempting a political reset by going it alone in the upcoming Assembly elections after two decades, banking on its early post-independence legacy, hoping it would still resonate with voters.
At the core of its campaign strategy is a sustained invocation of its rule between 1947 and 1968, especially under the state's late chief minister Bidhan Chandra Roy, who served between 1948 and 1962 and is still revered as Bengal's "visionary architect", projecting that period as a model of governance built on planning, strong public institutions, and administrative credibility. Many of the state's major development works were undertaken during his time.
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That message is being pushed not just through speeches but also via targeted social media outreach.
Party appeals to voters to 'restore lost glory'
The Congress is calling on voters to “restore the lost glory of Bengal from the time of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy” and rally behind the party to bring back what it described as a people-centric model of governance.
The Congress has banked on the era of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, considered one of its best chief ministers, to do well in the upcoming Bengal elections. The above is a picture of the Congress appealing to the state's voters to bring back the golden era of Roy.
The party has outlined a set of 12 broad promises aimed at translating that legacy into present-day commitments, packaged under a Bengali slogan: “Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy-er Sonar Bangla phiriye ante Congress (Congress will restore Dr B C Roy’s Golden Bengal).”
These include pledges around employment generation, revival of industry, strengthening public healthcare and education, curbing corruption, ensuring law and order, supporting farmers, expanding social welfare, empowering youth and women, improving infrastructure, protecting democratic rights, and restoring what the party describes as administrative neutrality.
The Congress's campaign hinges on the assumption that its historical record can still serve as a credible reference point for today’s electorate, even though that claim is complicated by the party’s later legacy.
Party leaders argue that the governance model shaped by its chief ministers, who played key roles in building hospitals, educational institutions and planned townships, offers a contrast to what they describe as present-day governance failures.
Congress remembers SS Ray, its last Bengal CM
To reinforce this message, many Congress leaders and supporters on Sunday (March 22) shared on social media an image of a plaque marking the inauguration of the Salt Lake City project on the same date 51 years ago, by then chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray (1972-77), recalling the party’s role in building key urban infrastructure in the state. Ray remains the party's last chief minister to rule Bengal.
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“The idea is to connect past credibility with present concerns,” Ranajit Mukherjee, West Bengal Congress Political Affairs Committee member told The Federal.
He said that all of Bengal’s key industrial, educational and medical institutions, as well as its planned urban centres, were built during the Congress's period.
“While reminding voters of these achievements, we promise to carry this legacy forward and make Bengal a developed state like Congress-ruled Telangana and Karnataka,” Mukherjee added.
But political observers say the effectiveness of this strategy depends on whether that legacy still resonates with voters and how widely it is remembered in its entirety, given that parts of it were deeply unpopular.
But not all of Congress era makes happy memory
After the late 1960s, the Congress’s political legacy in Bengal became more contested. The party returned to power in 1972 under Ray, but that period remains one of the most debated in the state’s history.
The 1972 election saw widespread allegations of rigging and intimidation. Opposition parties rejected the results and accused the Congress of unleashing “terror”.
Ray’s tenure was also marked by a strong crackdown on Naxalite groups and political opponents, a period often linked to police excesses and political violence.
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Veteran political commentator and author Sukharanjan Dasgupta said that the phase helped shape Bengal’s long and turbulent political culture.
“Much of the bitterness in Bengal’s political memory has roots in that period,” said another Kolkata-based political commentator and author, Amal Sarkar, referring to the early 1970s.
The Congress government’s handling of democratic institutions during that time has also drawn scrutiny. Ray played a key role in advising the then prime minister Indira Gandhi on the imposition of the Emergency at the national level in 1975, a move that saw civil liberties suspended across India.
'For today's Congress, history presents paradox'
“For today’s Congress, this history presents a paradox. For younger voters, the Congress era may be too distant to matter. For older voters, it may not be uniformly positive,” Sarkar added.
Responding to criticism of that period, Mukherjee defended the party’s reliance on its historical record.
“There were excesses during that period, including the crackdown on Naxalites and the Emergency, and we are not denying that,” he said.
“But that was a very different time, marked by serious law and order challenges, including attacks on police personnel. Those events cannot be seen in isolation or judged entirely by today’s standards. What remains relevant is the institutional foundation the Congress built in Bengal. That legacy still exists, and we believe people will judge us in totality, where the positives far outweigh the negatives.”
What voters are saying
That argument appears to find some resonance among older voters, though with qualifications.
Subrata Chakraborty, a 78-year-old retired railway employee and voter from Behala East, said the Congress message still carried some weight. “Those who have seen that time know there was discipline and development,” he said. “Hospitals, roads, institutions, many of those came up then. But times have changed. People will still look at who is delivering now.”
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For younger voters, however, such legacy-based appeals appear more nuanced and less directly relevant.
Anubhav Das, a young voter from Ballygunge in south Kolkata, said he had heard both positive and negative accounts of the Congress era, but did not see it as relevant to his choice.
“We have heard good and bad things about that time, but what matters to us is the present,” he said. “Bengal needs change now.”
He added that voters were also weighing alternatives carefully. “The track record of BJP-ruled states is not very different, in some cases even worse,” he said.
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“So, people may think of looking beyond both the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. But for that, parties like Congress will have to show they have the fire in the belly to really fight and take on the two main political forces.”
The million-dollar question now is whether Congress has the firepower to take on the two dominant parties. The party is yet to announce even its first list of candidates, though leaders have indicated it plans to contest all 294 seats in the state, and it remains unclear how extensively senior leaders such as Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will campaign in the state.