BJP shares clipped video of Mamata’s speech to claim she ‘mocked demolition of temples’

With the high-stakes Bengal elections weeks away, BJP West Bengal on March 28 shared a 8-second video of a pre-election speech by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The party claimed on X that Banerjee had said BJP did much drama if a Shiv Mandir was destroyed, which implied that demolition of Hindu temples was not an important issue to her.

“Under her regime, Hindus have been repeatedly targeted- Durga Puja has been stopped, Saraswati Puja has been stopped, anti Hindu riots have happened in different parts of the state,” they went on to add. (Archive)

BJP does drama if a Shiv Mandir is broken – Mamata Banerjee

For Mamata Banerjee, Hindu temples being demolished is not an important issue. Under her regime, Hindus have been repeatedly targeted- Durga Puja has been stopped, Saraswati Puja has been stopped, anti Hindu riots have… pic.twitter.com/6NYQQfTWGU

— BJP West Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) March 28, 2026

The same video was also shared by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, who peddles misinformation on a regular basis. Banerjee had “casually mocking the demolition of a temple,” he claimed. (Archive)

“If a Shiva temple is demolished, how much drama BJP creates over it!”

This is the remark by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, casually mocking the demolition of a temple. Earlier too, she had made deeply provocative statements about unleashing her vote bank against Hindus.

Such… pic.twitter.com/UgN0AauLci

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 28, 2026

Among others who shared the video with the same claim are BJP leaders Pradeep Bhandari, Debjit Sarkar, Shanthi Kumar, pro-BJP X handle Trupti Garg, and Nupur J Sharma, the editor of the Right-wing propaganda website, OpIndia.

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Fact Check

We scrolled through Mamata Banerjee’s Facebook timeline and found that the viral video was from a public rally held on Saturday, March 28, at Khandara football ground in Raniganj in Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal.

The full video of the speech can be watched here:

11.17-minute mark onward in the video, Banerjee can be heard saying, “If one Shiv temple is broken, BJP does so much drama over it. Demolishing temples is not right. I do not endorse it. How many temples did BJP demolish while making the Kashi Viswanath temple?…”

It is understood that by Kashi Viswanath temple, she meant the Kashi Viswanath corridor.

So, it is clear that Banerjee did not just say that raising voice over demolition of temples was a drama, as the clipped video shared by BJP suggested. She was, in fact, pointing to what she saw as a double standard in the BJP’s approach — raising alarm in some cases while staying silent in others. Banerjee also stated that she did not support demolition of temples.

The video was clipped in a way so as to distort the statement and make it appear that she had mocked demolition of temples.

For the Kashi Viswanath Corridor, a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, around 300 structures over an area of roughly 50,000 square metre were demolished in Varanasi in 2018-19. While some locals and opposition leaders claimed that several temples were among the structures razed, the government and its agencies contested those claims. While Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath clearly stated that no temple was demolished, temple chief executive officer Vishal Singh said that ancient temples were ‘recovered’ during the demolition work.