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For over a decade, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s requests for land to fence India’s border with Bangladesh in West Bengal went, in his own telling, unanswered. On Friday, standing at the Sashastra Seema Bal’s frontier headquarters in Siliguri’s Ranidanga area alongside Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, Amit Shah made clear that chapter had closed—and used the moment to lay out an expansive national security agenda for the state’s northern flank.
Addressing a gathering at the SSB campus on the second day of his two-day North Bengal tour, Shah announced that the Adhikari government had handed over 1,129 acres of land required to complete the India-Bangladesh border fencing, with another 29 acres expected shortly. He said he had been asking for the land to strengthen border security since 2014, and that it was received only after the BJP government was formed in the state. Shah added that the appeals made to the previous Mamata Banerjee-led government went unheeded until she left office, recalling that he had personally visited her office to explain that the land was intended for the BSF and not for the BJP.
The event, held for the ground-breaking and foundation-stone laying of various SSB projects, saw Shah announce infrastructure worth close to Rs 189 crore. He said the Siliguri Corridor—the narrow, strategically sensitive strip of land connecting India’s northeastern states to the mainland—alone required 560 acres, which the previous government had also failed to provide. Officials noted that the Adhikari government had granted the 1,129 acres within 45 days of assuming office in May, a turnaround Shah repeatedly held up as evidence of a changed equation between Delhi and Kolkata.
Shah also used the occasion to draw a contrast in political optics. He pointed out that no Chief Minister of the state had previously attended events organised by the SSB or the BSF, crediting Adhikari with breaking that pattern. “We used to call the former CM to the SSB programmes, but she did not want to come. We called you, and you came,” Shah said, addressing Adhikari directly, adding that the forces belonged to no political party or government.
Shah also spoke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to strengthen the Chicken’s Neck, or the Siliguri Corridor, which is a strategically sensitive area. “The Suvendu Adhikari government has provided 1,129 acres of land to the BSF in Bengal, and another 29 acres will be handed over shortly. We need to stop infiltration. We wanted to fence the entire border, but Mamata ji never gave us land. I even once went to her office for this. She agreed but never gave us the land,” added Shah.
He also spoke about the West Bengal government’s cooperation in taking forward border-fencing measures. “I want to praise Suvendu Adhikari. Ever since he came to power, when the home ministry needs anything for border security, we just phone him and the letter goes later, but permission is granted first,” explained Shah.
On his part, Suvendu Adhikari expressed support for the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision, stating that the biggest work will be done in West Bengal. The Union Home Minister said three layers of security are being established in Siliguri. He said the Centre has also strengthened its presence in the region. The one thing missing was 550 acres of land for integrating security agencies. “We thank the Suvendu Adhikari government for giving us permission to acquire the land,” said Shah.
Later in the day, Shah travelled to Kawakhali Maidan to inaugurate an exhibition on the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the other new criminal laws—the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. He accused the previous TMC dispensation of delaying notification of these laws, alleging it sought to protect a “syndicate, cutmoney and extortion regime,” and said the laws, now implemented under the Adhikari government, marked a shift from an environment of fear to one of trust.
The Home Minister rounded off his engagements by joining SSB personnel for the traditional “Bada Khana,” a shared meal meant to reinforce camaraderie among the ranks.
Within the BJP’s state unit, Friday’s announcements were framed as proof that Bengal’s security establishment could finally function without political friction. A senior state BJP functionary said the land handover “removes an excuse the Centre has heard for over ten years” and argued that the swift clearance under the new government showed “what cooperation between Delhi and the state actually looks like, instead of confrontation.”
Party leaders pointed to the 45-day turnaround on the 1,129 acres as a talking point they intend to carry into the party’s outreach across the border districts of North Bengal, where infiltration and demographic change have long been charged campaign themes.
The Trinamool Congress, now in Opposition after ending its 15-year run in the state, was more circumspect in its immediate response, with the party yet to issue a detailed statement countering Shah’s timeline of events. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, representing the Mamata Banerjee faction, however, said that land acquisition for border infrastructure routinely involves state-level processes—including verification, compensation and resettlement of displaced families—that cannot be reduced to a simple binary of political will. “These are not decisions taken overnight, regardless of which party is in Nabanna,” the spokesperson said, adding that the party would examine the specifics of the parcels involved before responding further.
Political commentators tracking Bengal’s post-poll landscape said the visit was as much about consolidating the BJP’s narrative in the state as it was about the substance of border security. Biswanath Chakraborty, a Kolkata-based political analyst, noted that framing the land transfer explicitly against the previous government’s record allows the BJP to “convert an administrative milestone into a political one,” reinforcing its argument that governance in the state has changed fundamentally since May. Another observer, Shuvomay Maitra, pointed out that Shah’s repeated references to SSB and BSF events being snubbed by past Chief Ministers were less about the forces themselves and more “a running commentary on the Centre-state relationship that defined the previous decade,” and would likely recur through subsequent visits.
With the BJP keen to showcase early wins from its first term in Bengal and the security establishment eager to complete long-pending fencing work along a porous stretch of the international border, Friday’s events in Siliguri are expected to be the first of several such joint appearances by Shah and Adhikari in the coming months, particularly along the state’s border districts.