The BJP has launched its first trade union at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, beginning an effort to organise contractual workers while promising that labour activity will not disrupt airport operations.
The union was inaugurated on Saturday in the presence of BJP national general secretary Sunil Bansal and Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya. Bansal described the launch as a “historic day” and said similar workers’ organisations would be expanded to other sectors.
The immediate focus of the new union is the airport’s contractual workforce. Bansal said the organisation would safeguard workers’ interests and operate with transparency and integrity. The announcement places labour representation within one of the city’s most critical public-facing infrastructures, where ground handling, cleaning, security support, maintenance and other contracted services are central to daily operations.
Bhattacharya said the union had been formed despite the BJP’s earlier position on trade unions. He said its purpose was to protect employees’ rights while ensuring that airport activities continued without disruption. He added that workers had the right to press for legitimate demands but should ensure that their actions did not affect airport operations.
The leaders’ remarks linked the union’s formation to the BJP’s broader economic and industrial agenda in Bengal. Bhattacharya blamed what he called militant trade unionism for the decline of the state’s industrial sector and said the party wanted to promote labour rights alongside investment and industrial growth.
Bhattacharya claimed that fresh investments had begun flowing into Bengal since the BJP came to power in the state, and that non-resident Indian investors and existing business houses were approaching the government with new proposals and expansion plans. These claims were made at the launch and were not accompanied in the supplied report by investment figures or details of specific projects.
He also referred to the earlier slogans “Destination Bengal” and “Bengal Means Business”, associated with the previous Trinamool Congress government’s investment outreach and Bengal Global Business Summit. Bhattacharya said the BJP administration would seek to turn those promises into reality, while asserting that the state’s association with cheap labour would be removed.
Bansal said Bengal could become one of India’s leading states within the next five years and said the government would work towards a developed Bengal. Bhattacharya separately said the party intended to stop the outflow of labour, capital and talent from the state.
The launch gives the BJP a formal organisational presence among workers at Kolkata airport, but the supplied report does not specify the union’s membership, its office-bearers, the number of contractual employees it seeks to represent or the process through which worker grievances will be handled. The party’s next stated step is to expand similar workers’ organisations to other sectors.
