From 'Encounters' To 'Sanatani' Bengal: Is Suvendu Adhikari Building A 'Yogi Adityanath Model'?

News india From 'Encounters' To 'Sanatani' Bengal: Is Suvendu Adhikari Building A 'Yogi Adityanath Model'?

Last Updated:October 28, 2026, 09:24 IST

Bengal’s two police encounters in a day raise questions over Adhikari’s law-and-order strategy, the Yogi model of policing & whether tough action can substitute for good governance

Two police encounters in West Bengal in one day—October 27. Two accused killed in separate ‘exchanges of fire’ with the police. One of them, 23-year-old Prahlad Das, was arrested in connection with the alleged rape and murder of a Class 11 student in Gaighata, North 24 Parganas. Police said during a late-night crime-scene reconstruction, Das snatched a service weapon and opened fire, forcing the police team to retaliate. The second encounter involved Samaul Sheikh, an accused in a murder case in Shamshergunj, Murshidabad. The circumstances of that encounter, too, will have to be established independently.

The immediate facts are stark and the political meaning is even starker. The accused were not convicted following trial; instead, they were in police custody. And their deaths happened during crime-scene reconstruction, which is part of the investigation process. The two encounters on Tuesday came on the heels of the July encounter killing of the prime accused in the Baruipur rape-murder case, in which the victim was a 13-year-old.

The latest episode makes a question difficult to avoid though. Is Bengal beginning to acquire a new law-and-order template, one in which the state’s capacity to use force is itself becoming part of the political message?

The comparison with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is therefore inevitable. Uttar Pradesh has made ‘zero tolerance’ policing a central part of its political brand, with encounter killings becoming one of the most visible, and controversial manifestations of that approach.

In Bengal, the appeal of such imagery is obvious for a BJP government led by Suvendu Adhikari. After years of campaigning against alleged lawlessness and administrative impunity, the message is that the state is no longer merely registering cases and waiting for the courts—it is visibly taking control.

The Yogi Templates

There is a genuine deterrence argument here. When an accused in a particularly brutal crime is killed after, according to the police, attacking officers or attempting to escape, supporters can see it as an unmistakable warning to criminals. For a public increasingly impatient with delayed investigations and trials, such action can create the perception of a government that acts rather than merely promises.

But deterrence cannot become a substitute for due process, at least not under the Indian law.

An accused remains an ‘accused’ until a court establishes guilt. That distinction becomes especially important when a person is killed during police custody or an investigation. The harder the police action, the greater the obligation to establish independently that lethal force was unavoidable. Otherwise, the encounter risks collapsing the distinction between investigation, prosecution and punishment.

That is the fundamental peril of extra-judicial killing. It can be immensely popular in the immediate aftermath of a horrific crime precisely because it appears to deliver the certainty and speed that the prolonged criminal justice system often fails to provide. But the same quality that makes encounters politically attractive makes them institutionally dangerous. A state that derives legitimacy from the rule of law cannot allow public anger to become a substitute for judicial determination, or vigilantism or a mob to take over.

Controversial encounters can also become politically toxic when questions arise over the circumstances of the alleged escape, the handling of an accused, the recovery and use of weapons, or whether the police account can withstand independent scrutiny. The Baruipur encounter in July, for instance, itself drew judicial scrutiny over the circumstances in which the accused was taken for crime-scene reconstruction.

For Suvendu Adhikari, therefore, the political dividend and the institutional risk are arriving together.

Governance Or Gallery

The timing is particularly awkward because the government has just emerged from a Durga Puja that was intended to be a showcase of both administrative control and a more assertive Hindu cultural politics. Instead, the festival was overshadowed by a devastating stampede that killed 19 people and left 25 critically injured. The government perhaps now needs to play to the gallery to appeal to the populace.

The cultural project was equally visible, reclaiming Durga Puja as a marker of Bengal’s ‘Sanatani’ identity, including the politically symbolic decision to organise a new puja at Allen Park in the Park Street-Camac Street area, traditionally associated with Kolkata’s Christmas festivities. The blocking of a major arterial road for the event added another layer to the politics of assertion.

But cultural reclamation is one thing. Administrative competence is another.

The stampede has exposed precisely the less glamorous side of governance that includes crowd management, emergency preparedness, coordination, accountability and the ability to anticipate how thousands of people will move through a confined urban space. A government cannot establish administrative authority simply through the spectacle of force.

The Civic Test

That is why the upcoming civic election now will be the first serious test of Suvendu Adhikari’s new political proposition.

His right-wing, ‘Sanatani’ positioning may sharpen the BJP’s ideological identity in Bengal. Tough policing may create an immediate perception of strength. Encounters may reinforce the image of a government prepared to act without hesitation.

But the question Bengali voters will ultimately have to answer is more prosaic. Does this government actually govern better?

Kolkata’s voters will judge not only how aggressively the state responds after a crime, but whether it can prevent administrative failures before they become tragedies, not only whether it can project Hindu cultural confidence, but whether it can run the city efficiently and the state efficiently not only whether it can look strong, but whether its institutions are strong.

For now, the encounter politics gives Adhikari a potent image—the State is tough again. The civic election will test whether Bengal’s voters believe that toughness is the same thing as good governance, or whether they demand something harder. And that is going to be about a state that is not merely powerful, but accountable.

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