The three main Opposition parties of Bengal, in keeping with their prior intent, gave the all-party meeting on Bengal Day convened by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday a miss.

The BJP took it upon itself to “educate” the chief minister on the “importance” of June 20 as the state’s “foundation” day, with a hate-driven narrative. The CPM and the Congress said it was a non-issue getting undue importance.

The BJP’s state unit chief Sukanta Majumdar wrote a letter to the Trinamul chief, rejecting her invitation to the all-party meeting. A two-page note stained in communal overtones, explaining the BJP’s stand on the issue and why it believes that June 20 was the state’s “foundation” day, was attached.

Majumdar accused Mamata of trying to use the all-party meeting as an excuse to execute a decision already made, which is why he or his party colleagues would not attend it.

“The BJP still believes that (Bengal) is the homeland of Bengali Hindus. It was founded on June 20, 1947. The day when the provincial legislative assembly of Bengal took a decision on this,” he added.

In the attached note, the BJP elaborated on its perceived significance of June 20, 1947. In a bid to substantiate its inflammatory, polarising hypothesis, the BJP invoked the names of Rabindranath Tagore, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Nil Ratan Sircar, Jadunath Sarkar, and Meghnad Saha, besides saffron ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee, in its support. Of them, Tagore, Roy, and Sircar died years before 1947.

“It has to be said very firmly today that everyone who speaks in Bangla is not a Bengali, the individual will have to accept the legacy of five thousand years of Indian civilisation,” read the note.

“Bangla-speaking and Bengali are not the same,” it added.

The statement, BJP sources said, stems from the party’s belief that Muslims who speak Bengali as their mother tongue are not “Bengali enough”.

CPM state secretary Md Salim said the Left Front met on Sunday to discuss whether any of its constituents should participate in the meeting. It was consensually decided that the Front would not be a party to “this attempt to establish an RSS agenda” in Bengal.

Salim said nobody knew anything about the state’s so-called foundation day till the saffron ecosystem started observing it.

The Congress’s state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said on Monday that nobody from his party would participate in the meeting. Chowdhury too had said that it was more important to hold discussions on the law and order of the state, instead.

ISF chairman Nawsad Siddique, the only non-BJP Opposition MLA, said his party had not been invited.