KOLKATA: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal unit launched a blistering attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), accusing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of presiding over what it called the systematic economic dismantling of a state that once stood at the forefront of India’s growth story.
In a strongly worded post on X, the BJP said West Bengal has suffered a dramatic fall across every major economic indicator since the early decades after Independence. Citing historical data, the party claimed that the state’s contribution to India’s GDP has dropped from 10.5 per cent in 1960–61 to just 5.6 per cent today. Per capita income, which once stood at 127.5 per cent of the national average, has fallen to 83.7 per cent, the BJP alleged.
West Bengal once stood at the centre of India’s growth. In 1960–61, the state contributed 10.5% to India’s GDP, today it is 5.6%; its per capita income was 127.5% of the national average, today it is 83.7%; it produced 30% of India’s industrial output, today only 3.5%; it had 18%… pic.twitter.com/N3OMhQbw5B
— BJP West Bengal (@BJP4Bengal) December 31, 2025
The party further pointed to what it described as the near-collapse of Bengal’s industrial base. According to its claims, West Bengal once produced 30 per cent of India’s total industrial output, a figure that has now shrunk to 3.5 per cent. The share of registered factories has allegedly fallen from 18 per cent of the national total to just 3.9 per cent, while foreign direct investment has dried up almost entirely, with the state attracting only 0.66 per cent of India’s FDI compared to over 35 per cent going to Maharashtra alone.
While launching a scathing attack on TMC and Mamata Banerjee, the BJP said the downturn was “not accidental.” It specifically cited the Singur movement, which opposed the Tata Nano project, as a turning point that sent a “clear and dangerous message” to investors that industry was not welcome in Bengal. According to the BJP, factories were driven out, jobs were lost, and the livelihoods of lakhs of families were destroyed as a result.
BJP alleged that Mamata Banerjee’s politics went beyond opposing industrialisation and instead “went against West Bengal itself.” The BJP claimed that under the TMC’s rule, the state has lost its identity as a manufacturing and employment hub and is now better known for illegal activities such as bomb-making units, illegal sand mining, human trafficking, and what it termed appeasement-driven politics.
The BJP asserted that 2025 would mark the end of what it described as Bengal’s long economic decline. It claimed that from May next year, the state would return to a path of growth, adding that the vision of a “Viksit Bharat” is impossible without a “Viksit West Bengal.”
