PM Modi biggest brand ambassador for Bengal tourism: Abhishek Banerjee

In what can only be described as gratitude laced with mischief, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP and general-secfretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with doing what state tourism campaigns apparently could not — putting West Bengal’s ghats, roads and street food firmly in the national spotlight.

Addressing rallies in Jagatballavpur and Domjur in Howrah district, Banerjee suggested that Modi’s carefully choreographed campaign moments — strolling along the Ganga, sampling muri on a Jhargram pavement — had inadvertently doubled up as promotional reels for the state.

“If Bengal had not been showcased this way… people of the country would not have known how beautiful the Ganga is or how developed Jhargram’s roads are,” he said, before delivering the punchline: “The biggest brand ambassador of Mamata Banerjee’s Ma-Mati-Manush government is Narendra Modi.”

The compliment, such as it was, did not linger. Banerjee quickly pointed out that the infrastructure Modi was seen admiring — the road, the footpath — was built by the state government and local bodies. As for the muri vendor, he noted pointedly that the man hailed from Bihar, governed by the BJP and its allies, and had migrated to Bengal “out of economic compulsion” — a remark that doubled as a dig at the BJP’s governance record in its own states.

Banerjee has been equally sardonic online. In a post on X, he alluded to Modi’s much-publicised but ultimately aborted plan to take a dip in the Yamuna during Chhath Puja in October 2025, when concerns over pollution levels made the optics awkward. Drawing a contrast, Banerjee invited the prime minister to try the Ganga in Kolkata instead — a taunt that blended environmental critique with political theatre, and neatly fed into Friday’s “brand ambassador” line.

If the BJP arrived hoping to change Bengal, Banerjee suggested, it might want to check who is doing the changing. “They came to change Bengal, but they are changing themselves,” he said, adding that the party seemed quite capable of “exposing itself” without any opposition assistance.

He also extended an almost hospitable invitation: BJP leaders, he said, were welcome to visit Bengal throughout the year — not just during elections — to enjoy phuchka, jhal muri, rolls and kachuris, presumably alongside more impromptu tourism endorsements.

Turning to Union home minister Amit Shah, Banerjee advised him to “drink more water and keep a cool head”, citing both the summer heat and what he implied were less-than-encouraging signals from the first phase of polling held yesterday, 23 April.

On the numbers, confidence — or competitive optimism — was in no short supply. Banerjee claimed the TMC had “crossed a century”, while a party spokesperson put it ahead in over 125 of 152 seats polled. Shah, not to be outdone, pegged the BJP’s tally at over 110.

With turnout touching nearly 93 per cent — the highest since Independence — both sides are already calling it a landslide. The only unresolved detail, it seems, is whose landslide it will turn out to be.