Left leader Dipankar Bhattacharya has accused the BJP of "muddying" Bengal's water to "fish for votes" and rebuked the party for trying to appropriate the state's cultural and historical icons even though its own ideology was diametrically opposit to theirs.

The general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Liberation also claimed that the BJP's appeal had declined substantially post 2019 during the Modi-2 era due a host of factors like rising unemployment, escalating prices, regular hikes in the cost of petrol and diesel and disinvestment.

Talking exclusively to The Telegraph Online at the Circuit House here on Tuesday, Bhattacharya said, “Earlier, the people of Bengal had a remote experience with the BJP, even thinking, 'why not the BJP this time?'. But as the poll campaign progressed, they have come face-to-face with it and realised what the BJP stands for."

“People of Bengal have understood that the BJP uses people to gain power and after assuming power makes a mockery of the Constitution, destroys law and order and gets engaged in 'selling the nation'," added Bhattacharya, who is in Dhanbad to attend a two- day conclave of Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC).

Referring to the BJP's promise in its Bengal manifesto about making education free for girls from KG to PG , Bhattacharya posed a simple question. "Why hasn't the BJP not made education free in so many states where it is in power ?" he said.

Asked about the Sonar Bengal slogan of BJP, the Left leader said the BJP was in the business of selling dreams. "Why not Sonar Bihar or Sonar Asam? After all, didn’t they make Jharkhand Sonar Jharkhand during the Raghubar Das rule?," he said sarcastically.

The BJP, he added, was using emotional slogans and jugglery of words to usurp power. “BJP is also using Bengal’s historical icons, from Subhash Chandra Bose to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rabindranath Tagore, portraying them as legacy of BJP and RSS. But they are acting contrary to the teachings of these historical figures,” Bhattachrya said.