The Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal chief Sukanta Majumdar on Wednesday said that he has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to incorporate northern parts of the state into the North East because the two regions have “many similarities”, The Indian Express reported.

“I met with the prime minister today and handed over a presentation highlighting the similarities between north Bengal and North East states,” Majumdar, who is also a Union minister, said in a video statement. “I requested him to incorporate north Bengal, a part of West Bengal, into the North East [region].”

The BJP leader said that the prime minister will decide on the proposal. “If north Bengal is incorporated into the North East, it will benefit from the Union government schemes,” he said. “There will be more development. I do not think the state government will have objections and will cooperate.”

Majumdar represents the Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency in northern West Bengal.

The BJP has emerged as a political force in northern West Bengal, winning five out of the seven Lok Sabha seats in the region in the 2024 general election. In 2019, the Hindutva party had won six of the seven seats.

Some groups have long demanded statehood for northern areas of West Bengal. In 2021, John Barla, the BJP MP from northern Bengal’s Alipurduar constituency at the time, had also sought statehood for the region.

This has been opposed by the state’s Trinamool Congress government. In February 2023, the Assembly passed a motion against the demands.

Majumdar’s statement on Wednesday was criticised by the Trinamool Congress.

“Anti-Bengal, anti-Bengali @BJP4Bengal is up to their old tricks again..” Riju Dutta, a Trinamool Congress spokesperson, wrote on social media. “Let me be very clear to the descendants of Radcliffe - Bengal has been partitioned before causing tremendous agony to millions, who lost everything…”

This was a reference to Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer, who headed the boundary commissions responsible for demarcating India’s partition in 1947.

The Trinamool Congress “will not let that happen again”, Dutta said in a social media post on Wednesday.

“We will fight to the last drop of our blood to protect the sovereignty, integrity & boundary of Bengal!” Dutta said. “Bengal will never be divided again.”

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