West Bengal Govt to Set up 1,000 RSS-Run Schools
Saugar Sengupta | 05 September 2026 | The Pioneer
The Suvendu Adhikari Government wants to set up at least 1000 schools — affiliated to Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Siksha Sansthan, the educational wing of RSS — in Bengal. Besides, his Government is also likely to merge the entire education departments of the State into one, thus bringing the Madarsa education system under one umbrella, sources said.
The Bengal Chief Minister urged the Vidya Bharati to open schools in every district and municipal areas so as to impart nationalistic and patriotic culture among the students.
Asking the Sansthan to open more schools in districts like Murshidabad and South 24 Parganas, the Chief Minister said that these districts needed to develop more patriotic feeling among the students through these schools to counter the anti-national activities that had been taking place in these areas. Vidya Bharati presently runs little more than 300 schools in West Bengal.
Murshidabad district, which has about 68 per cent Muslim population, had witnessed massive communal riots last year, forcing several thousand people to flee to the neighbouring Malda district. The then Mamata Banerjee Government had come under severe criticism from the opposition for allowing the Hindu population to be attacked, with the police looking the other way.
Criticising the previous Government, the Chief Minister also expressed his views about running separate educational institutions by the minorities’ department, thus bringing the Madarsa education under a single umbrella with the mainstream schools. Incidentally, the budgetary allocation for the Madarsa boards had already been slashed by about 40 per cent this year.