"Why is the Bengal Chief Minister fighting with students like this? Is he scared?" a resident of Jadavpur, who had come to attend Suvendu Adhikari's Raksha Bandhan event held right outside Jadavpur University (JU) on Friday, 28 August, wondered, sipping tea at a stall in the adjacent 8B bus terminus. He was referring to the CM’s speech, replete with barely veiled threats and hypernationalist rhetoric.
“I know how to clear trash—I am that Chief Minister. I have cleaned communists out of Nandigram and Jangal Mahal. I will drive them out of Jadavpur, too,” Adhikari said. “They want azadi (freedom). Freedom to do what, drugs? Freedom for tukde tukde gang?”
Although the purported reason for the CM's event was to celebrate Raksha Bandhan with the collective singing of Vande Mataram, Adhikari's speech outside JU—days after the midnight attack allegedly by Akhil Bhartiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP) members following clashes with Left-backed student groups—appeared to intimidate and silence dissenters.
Under an overcast sky, the Bengal CM arrived with an entourage of party leaders and ministers who waved the tricolour as he addressed the crowd.
Unlike the loudspeaker announcements claiming 10,000 people were in attendance, the crowd on ground was thin. Some claimed it was about 2,000-3,000-strong.