West Bengal polls | The historical towns of Murshidabad, Malda may hold key to power in Bengal

BJP harps on infiltration while CAA is the most emotive political issue in the minority-dominated region

Not many people visit the ruins of the old “Jafarganj Palace” or “Jafarganj Deorhi” in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district. The palace is often referred to as “Namak Haram Deorhi” or the “Traitor’s Gate” by locals because it was were Mir Jafar lived. If there is one historical character whose name was dropped again and again in the political discourse during the 2021 Assembly polls in West Bengal, it was Mir Jafar, the military general of Nawab Siraj-U-Daullah who sided with the British. At almost every political rally, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the leaders of her own party who had defected to the BJP “Mir Jafars” and ‘traitors’. Murshidabad is the city of nawabs, from where they ruled the rest of Bengal till the battle of Plassey in 1757 and no reference to the politics of the region is complete without a mention of “Mir Jafar”. In the 2021 Assembly polls where the BJP used defections as a political tool, Mir Jafar’s reference was used across the State.