Bengal foundation day: Suvendu Adhikari leads BJP MLAs' protest march to Raj Bhavan over state govt's move

This comes as passing a bill to observe Bengal's foundation day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced the her government will celebrate the foundation day on Bengali New Year or Poila Boishakh (April 15) even if Governor CV Ananda Bose, who is at loggerheads with the state, disapproves it.

"We don't care whether the Governor approves or not. We will celebrate foundation day on Poila Boishakh. Let me see whose power is more, the people of a nominated person. I wouldn't have said this had the Governor not been dragged into the discussion," she said.

Suvendu, meanwhile, said the Bharatiya Janata Party will vehemently oppose the state government's "ill-willed motive to erase the contribution of Bharat Kesari Syama Prasad Mookerjee and disregard the historical facts that necessitated the formation of the State of West Bengal in order to create a homeland for the Bengali Hindus."

"I would like to remind the Mamata Banerjee Govt that when the Bengal Legislative Assembly convened on June 20, 1947 to decide the fate of Bengal, as per the procedure laid down by the British Government on 3rd June, 1947 on the subject of India (Transfer of Power); the Majority view was that 'the Province of Bengal as a whole' should join a new and a separate Constituent Assembly," he wrote in a long post on X, formerly called Twitter.

"@MamataOfficial today you are in the majority, that's why you want to erase the history; how West Bengal was formed and under what circumstances. You may have been able to get your resolution passed by 167 votes in your favour today against 62 votes of ours, but I promise you, sooner or later your unethical majoritarian view would be overturned just like it happened in 1947," he said.

Citing the reason behind opposing June 20 to mark the state's foundation day, which the Centre has proposed, Chief Minister Banerjee said the date reminds people of the partition of Bengal.

She has announced Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's "Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol" as the official song of West Bengal.

The government resolution, which was moved by West Bengal top ministers Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay and Shashi Panja, was passed easily by the government, which enjoys a landslide majority in the assembly.