West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday led a three-kilometre saffron procession through south Kolkata to the edge of Jadavpur University, framing the march as a defence of the “dignity” of the colour gerua and issuing a blunt warning to campus groups he accused of raising secessionist and Left slogans.
The Gerua Samman Yatra began at Golpark and moved along the southbound stretch of Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick Road before concluding at the 8B bus stand outside the university. Adhikari walked at the front in a saffron kurta, holding a saffron flag. Monks, Naga sadhus and other seers joined BJP workers in chanting “Jai Shri Ram.” University gates remained shut and police were deployed as the procession reached the campus perimeter.
Speaking from the stage outside the campus, Adhikari said he would not accept any insult to saffron and pledged to remove the forces he associated with “Kashmir Mange Azadi” slogans and “red salute” graffiti. “We will uproot the forces raising ‘Kashmir wants freedom’ slogans on the Jadavpur University campus,” he told the gathering. In a fuller formulation carried by several outlets, he added: “I will not tolerate the insult of saffron. I have given a clear message. The West Bengal chief minister knows how to wipe out ‘Kashmir Mange Azadi’ and ‘red salute’ from Jadavpur.” He described Jadavpur as “the land of Sri Aurobindo and a centre of excellence” and said he had taken a vow to uproot those raising such slogans.
In Bengali, he also targeted those he said offered a “red salute” to slain Maoist leader Kishenji, and cautioned critics of saffron and of “spiritual awakening” in the state to “think five times” before using abusive language, saying insult to gerua would not be tolerated.
He announced he would return to the neighbourhood for recitation of the Gita and the Hanuman Chalisa. “I will come again to teach them a lesson through recitation of the Gita and the Hanuman Chalisa,” he said. “This is the land of Swami Vivekananda, and saffron will remain here.” He also appealed for public participation in a three-day Vedic recital programme.
The yatra followed weeks of campus confrontation between Left-backed student organisations and the RSS-affiliated ABVP: clashes, erased and rewritten graffiti, and competing slogans. It came less than a fortnight after Adhikari attended a “Vande Mataram in 10,000 voices” programme at the same 8B stand on Rakhi Purnima, when he had already accused both the former Left Front and the Trinamool Congress of letting nationalism recede from public life. BJP organisers presented Wednesday’s march as a pushback against what they called attempts to “malign” saffron and as an effort to highlight values they associate with the colour - renunciation, courage and Sanatan tradition.
Separately, Adhikari’s government has scheduled a special two-hour Assembly sitting on Thursday, 10 September, from 11 am to 1 pm, to introduce the West Bengal Universities and Colleges Administration and Regulation Amendment Bill, 2026. The Cabinet has already cleared the measure. Officially, it would allow inter-university transfer of teaching and non-teaching staff so that “experienced” faculty can be moved “urgently” to newer universities. College teachers already have a transfer route; university teachers do not. Adhikari has said the public “can understand what I am saying.”
Teachers’ bodies, including the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, have called the draft an attack on campus autonomy. Coming the day after a saffron rally passing by JU’s gates and after months of the Chief Minister branding sections of the campus “anti-national,” the timing has fuelled speculation that the law could be used as an administrative lever over politically contested universities, even though the government has not publicly tied the Bill to Jadavpur by name.
