Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday touched the feet of 98-year-old BJP veteran Makhanlal Sarkar and sought his blessings at the swearing-in ceremony of the party's first-ever government in West Bengal, held at Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata.
The moment, which came before the oath-taking ceremony of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, drew widespread attention as one of the most emotional episodes of a historically charged afternoon.
Felicitating Sarkar on stage before the ceremony, the Prime Minister touched his feet to seek his blessings and hugged the veteran leader before exchanging pleasantries. The gesture was seen as a tribute not just to Sarkar personally, but to the generation of quiet, grassroots BJP workers who built the party from scratch in a state where it was, for decades, a marginal political force.
Who Is Makhanlal Sarkar?
Makhanlal Sarkar is among the last surviving links to the earliest chapter of organised Hindu nationalist politics in post-Independence India.
In 1952, he was arrested in Kashmir while accompanying Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee during the movement to hoist the Indian tricolour there — a defining episode in the BJP's ideological lineage that the party has long regarded as a founding sacrifice. "Sarkar is one of the early grassroots figures associated with the nationalist movement in post-Independence India," the BJP said in a statement.
After the formation of the BJP in 1980, Sarkar became the organisational coordinator for what were then the districts of West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, and Darjeeling in Left Front-ruled West Bengal — a period when the party had little electoral traction in the state. Within a year, he reportedly helped enroll nearly 10,000 members into the party.
From 1981 onward, he served continuously for seven years as district president. The BJP noted this was an exceptional achievement at a time when party leaders generally could not remain in the same organisational position for more than two years.
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West Bengal BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya said Makhanlal Sarkar was once arrested by Delhi Police during the Congress regime for singing a nationalist song.
Bhattacharya said Sarkar refused to apologise in court and instead sang the same song before the judge. “He refused to apologise in Court. He sang the same song in the Court and the judge asked to get him a first class ticket back home and 100 rupees for his journey," he said.
For the BJP, Saturday was not merely a day of political triumph. In placing Sarkar at the centre of its most consequential moment in Bengal, the party made clear that it sees this victory as the culmination of a struggle stretching back more than seven decades.
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