PM Modi seeks blessings of 98-year-old BJP veteran Makhanlal Sarkar at Bengal oath ceremony

Narendra Modi on Saturday felicitated and sought blessings from 98-year-old BJP veteran Makhanlal Sarkar during the swearing-in ceremony of the new BJP government at Brigade Parade Ground.

The moment unfolded just before Suvendu Adhikari took oath as West Bengal’s first BJP chief minister, in the presence of senior party leaders, chief ministers from BJP-ruled states and hundreds of supporters.

Who is Makhanlal Sarkar?

Makhanlal Sarkar is regarded as one of the BJP’s earliest grassroots organisers in West Bengal and has remained associated with nationalist politics since the years following Independence.

In 1952, he was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir while accompanying Syama Prasad Mukherjee during a movement to hoist the Indian tricolour there.

After the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, Sarkar was appointed organisational coordinator for West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling districts.

Within a year, he reportedly helped enrol nearly 10,000 members, playing a significant role in expanding the party’s base across north Bengal.

From 1981 onward, he served for seven consecutive years as district president — an unusually long tenure during a period when BJP leaders rarely remained in the same organisational role for more than two years.

BJP’s historic Bengal breakthrough

The swearing-in marked a major political turning point in West Bengal, where the BJP formed its first government since Independence after winning 207 seats in the 2026 Assembly elections.

The All India Trinamool Congress, which had governed the state for 15 years, was reduced to 80 seats.

Adhikari, who contested from both Nandigram and Bhabanipur, defeated outgoing chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur by more than 15,000 votes.

Several senior BJP leaders attended the ceremony, including Rajnath Singh, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, Manik Saha and Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Ahead of the ceremony, Adhikari described the event as the beginning of the “Sonar Bangla” era.

In a post on X, he called it a “historic dawn” for West Bengal and said the new government marked the beginning of a “double-engine” phase focused on development, peace and prosperity.