Don’t go to Kashmir & Muslim majority areas, says Bengal LoP Suvendu amid new state BJP chief’s minority outreach

BJP leader and West Bengal Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on July 10 urged Bengalis not to visit Kashmir owing to the northern state’s majority Muslim population. Adhikari’s comments came in response to Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah’s invitation to the people of West Bengal to visit Kashmir while speaking at the inauguration of a travel and tourism fair in Kolkata on the same day.

Adhikari said, “Koi Bangali Kashmir nahi jayega. Jahan Musalman abaadi zyada hai, main party affiliation mein nahi bolta hu, mai BJP ke MLA (hokar) nahi (bolta hu)… main jiss tareekein se Bitan Adhikary ji ka wife, Samir Guha ji ka wife ka aasun dekha na… mai unko sujhaav de diya. Bhai jahaan musalmaan abaadi hai, usmein mat jao… Kashmir jana hai toh Jammu jao. Kashmir jaana hai toh Jammu mein jao, jahaan musalmaan abaadi zyada hai, mat jao. Mat jao. Apne kapda khulke, aur sindoor dekh ke chunchun ke maara hai. Humara Himachal Pradesh hai jaiye na, Devbhoomi hai. Uttarakhand jaiyena, Jaiye Orissa jaiye…Pura desh ghumna chahiye humlogo ko… lekin Bangal mein mai personal mera mai ek sensible citizen hu, mai airport mein Bitan Adhikari ji ka wife aur Sameer Guha ji ka wife jo mujhe bataya aplogo ka saamne, aur unka jitna bhi aansu dekha hai na… Main Bangali logon (ko) bata raha hu, aap musalmaan jahaan hai zyada, mat jaiye. Jaan pehle. Apne jaan ko raksha kijiye, chhota chhota bachha ko rakhsa kijiye. Didi behen ko raksha (kijiye)…”

(Translation: No Bengali will go to Kashmir. I am not saying this from my party affiliation or as a BJP MLA… The way I saw the tears of Bitan Adhikari’s wife, Samir Guha’s wife… I suggested to them. Don’t go where there is a majority Muslim population… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu, but don’t go to a place where there is a majority of Muslims. Don’t go. (They) took off clothes, and checked the vermilion (on the women’s foreheads), and killed selectively. We have Himachal Pradesh, go there, it is our Devbhoomi. Go to Uttarakhand, go to Odisha… We should travel the whole country.. I am a sensible citizen… I saw Bitan Adhikari’s wife and Sameer Guha’s wife at the airport, whatever they told me in front of you people… I have seen their tears. I am telling the Bengali people — do not go to a place which has a majority Muslim population. Life first. Protect your life, protect your children. Protect your sisters.)

#WATCH | Kolkata | On J&K CM Omar Abdullah inviting people of West Bengal to visit J&K, WB LoP and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari says, “… No Bengali will visit Kashmir. I am saying this out of party affiliation, don’t visit places where Muslims are in the majority. Go to Jammu if… pic.twitter.com/Fn0IZ3KEQK

— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2025

Hours before Adhikari’s comments, Abdullah had assured potential tourists from West Bengal that the J&K government had taken sufficient security-related steps after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. He also urged people to trust those who had been to Kashmir after the attack rather than believing “those sitting outside and making judgments without even knowing the place.” It is worth noting that on an average, 25-30% of Kashmir tourists are reportedly from Bengal.

In his remarks, Adhikari used the attack in Pahalgam to ‘warn’ Bengalis against visiting Muslim majority areas. Adhikari had met the families of two victims of the attack, Bitan Adhikari and Sameer Guha — both of whom were Bengali. The implications of Adhikari’s remarks are layered. In a statement after India’s retaliatory Operation Sindoor, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had said that the terrorists “didn’t just want to traumatise victims and families to ‘send a message’, but targeted the economy in Jammu Kashmir, and attempted to provoke ‘communal discord’ in India, which failed.”

However, when the Leader of Opposition of West Bengal, a state that provides a significant fraction of tourism to Kashmir, urges the residents of his state to refrain from visiting due to the majority of Muslims, it furthers the communal narrative while also implicitly calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. This clearly amounts to religious discrimination and hate speech.

New Bengal BJP Chief’s ‘Muslim Outreach’

Interestingly, Adhikari’s comments come days after newly elected Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya spoke about the BJP’s outreach to the minority community in West Bengal. “Even if the Muslims do not vote for us, our development must and will reach their homes,” Bhattacharya said in an interview with India Today’s Insight. Before this, in a seeming departure from the party’s erstwhile political stance, Bhattacharya stated that his party was not against Muslims, and envisaged a West Bengal where Muharram and Durga puja immersion could be held side by side without communal clashes. This remark came at the very event where he was formally introduced as the state unit chief and in the presence of Adhikari.

In stark contrast to this, Adhikari has clearly said in the past the Bengal BJP MLAs had been elected by Hindus, while the Mamata Banerjee government was “a govt of Mollahs”. Addressing media persons outside the state assembly on February 17, 2025, Adhikari had said, “I, along with Agnimitra Pal, Biswanath Karak, and Bankim Ghosh, take pride in the fact that we won with Hindu votes — not with Muslim votes. BJP MLAs and MPs hold their positions today because of Hindu and ST votes… this government — a government of Mollahs, a government for Muslims… has targeted me. The chief minister is an appeaser of Muslims, an enemy of Hindus, leading a government that is nothing less than Muslim League 2.0…”

Again, in July 2024, while claiming that Muslims of West Bengal had not voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha election, Adhikari called for putting an end to the party’s slogan of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikaas’. Speaking to journalists after the party’s first working committee meeting following the poll results, he also called for doing away with BJP’s ‘minority morchas’.

When asked to comment on Suvendu’s remarks on Kashmir, Bhattacharya said, “I don’t know in what context our Leader of Opposition is saying this. The stone pelting in Kashmir has stopped, and after the Pahalgam incident, there is panic in the minds of the people. I don’t know under what situation he (Adhikari) has said this now, and I haven’t heard (what he said). Maybe he said it because he thinks Himachal Pradesh is more beautiful. There is no dispute in the party about this (the remarks).”

Bhattacharya has also called Adhikari’s controversial remarks on Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas a ‘personal stance’. One wonders whether it is the new state unit chief’s minority outreach agenda that made Suvendu sound the disclaimer on July 10 that he was not speaking from party affiliation.

Adhikari, once Mamata Banerjee’s protege, beat Banerjee from the Nandigram seat in the 2021 assembly polls by a margin of 1,956 votes. According to the 2011 census, Nandigram has a Muslim population of 40.32%, second to the Hindu population of 59.37%.