Almost 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome, after an emperor was removed unceremoniously, busts, statues, and portraits of the ruler were destroyed. Called damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory), it was the ancient Roman equivalent of cancel culture. The practice of damnatio memoriae was used by the Senate to officially erase a disgraced or deposed emperor from history.

In the last century and the present one, following the fall of communist regimes, the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, and the change of government led by Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh in 2024, statues representing the fallen rulers were pulled down.

On June 1, 2026, as 35 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs were being administered the oath of office as Ministers at Lok Bhawan in Kolkata, a 70-foot statue of footballer Lionel Messi was removed from a prominent intersection in the city. It signified the collapse of the Trinamool Congress’s 15-year tenure in West Bengal. Along with it, hoardings and posters of leaders of the previous regime disappeared overnight. Kolkata began to look different.

The fibreglass-and-iron statue of Messi had become one of the city’s most iconic landmarks. It was installed in December 2025 during the football legend’s “GOAT India Tour”. The Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, where the statue stood, hosts one of Kolkata’s most iconic Durga Pujas, organised by the Sreebhumi Sporting Club.

Former West Bengal Fire Minister Sujit Bose, patron of the Durga Puja celebration, was the key figure behind the statue installation. Years earlier, when the Trinamool Congress government sought to transform Kolkata into a London-like cityscape, Mr. Bose began installing themed structures around the Durga Puja venue. A clock tower modelled on Big Ben was among the installations at the site.

Headwinds, political and climatic

The collapse of the Trinamool Congress regime led to the downfall of several party leaders, including Mr. Bose. A week after losing the election to the BJP’s Sharadwat Mukherjee, Mr. Bose was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 11 for his alleged involvement in a municipal recruitment scam.

The political storm and the nor’wester winds appeared to converge on the statue. Swaying in strong winds, it had to be secured with heavy-duty nylon ropes, while barricades were erected to keep people and traffic away from the site.

“We have noticed that the statue is swaying in the wind,” Mr. Mukherjee had said before being sworn in. He added that the statue’s proximity to a busy road and a subway made its removal difficult, but that the authorities planned to “remove the statue at the earliest opportunity”.

On June 1, when the statue was removed, Kolkata witnessed a storm with gusts ranging from 60 kmph to 80 kmph. As cranes lifted the structure and transported it away, the spectacle resembled a scene from Gulliver’s Travels. Against overcast skies, trucks carried the 70-foot statue through the streets of Kolkata, making surrounding buildings and structures appear almost Lilliputian. The State Public Works Department has decided to keep the statue at an undisclosed location.

Messi’s statue is not the only casualty. Not far away stood another giant football-themed sculpture outside Kolkata’s Salt Lake Stadium, also known as Yuba Bharati Krirangan. The installation, featuring giant muscular legs in football boots topped by a football, had been conceived by former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The design drew mixed reactions when it was installed. The structure was removed on May 23.

“Such an ugly-looking statue does not make sense. It is not aesthetically pleasing either. We will not keep such a grotesque structure that has no meaning, and it will be taken down,” West Bengal Sports Minister and BJP leader Nisith Pramanik said. The Minister said the structure had been removed as part of efforts to beautify the Salt Lake Stadium precinct and quipped that the Trinamool Congress’s misfortunes had begun after its installation.

In the weeks following the change of regime in West Bengal, several symbols associated with Trinamool Congress rule were removed. Some, such as the Messi statue and the Salt Lake Stadium installation, which Ms. Banerjee had conceived with considerable fanfare, were dismantled. Others simply disappeared under the cover of darkness.

Before May 4, large cut-outs and hoardings of former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee could be seen along almost every major thoroughfare in Kolkata. These disappeared overnight. What particularly pained the former Chief Minister, however, was the removal of the Biswa Bangla logo she had designed from intersections across Kolkata and elsewhere in the State.

Ms. Banerjee, who has also pursued painting, designed a logo featuring the Bengali letter “B” on a globe, symbolising “Biswa Bangla”, which roughly translates as “Where the World Meets Bengal”. Launched in September 2013, the Biswa Bangla brand was conceived as a symbol of Bengal’s distinct cultural identity. The logo appeared on State government websites, infrastructure projects and even official correspondence issued by the former Chief Minister.

Speaking about the removal of both the logo and the football-themed installations, Ms. Banerjee said, “I feel very bad. I made that logo with the help of an artist, but I drew it myself... Seeing this (Messi’s statue), our younger brothers and sisters, sports lovers, took selfies. And FIFA, which held the U-17 World Cup matches at Salt Lake Stadium, appreciated it.”

Painting the town saffron

The removal of old symbols has made way for the Ashoka Pillar on State government websites and at official events.

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on June 7 that the BJP government would construct a 125-foot statue in honour of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee to mark his 125th birth anniversary.

The BJP government has also announced that it will observe June 20 as Paschim Banga Dibas (West Bengal State Day). On that day in 1947, Syama Prasad Mookerjee moved a proposal in the Bengal Legislative Assembly for Bengal’s partition, a step the Bharatiya Janata Party says paved the way for the creation of a “homeland for the Hindus of Bengal”. During the Trinamool Congress regime, Poila Baisakh, the first day of the Bengali New Year, was observed as Paschim Banga Dibas.

Amid the removal of symbols and statues, Kolkata’s colourscape is changing. From the Trinamool Congress’s signature blue-and-white scheme that dominated government offices and party establishments, the colours of public buildings are increasingly turning saffron. Soon after the BJP’s victory, the West Bengal Assembly and Nabanna, the State Secretariat, began adopting saffron hues.

Some Trinamool Congress party offices have hurriedly repainted their premises saffron and erected BJP flags in an apparent attempt to avoid local ire. Such incidents have been reported across the State, but perhaps the most striking makeover occurred on Debendra Chandra Dey Street, near Kolkata’s Tangra area.

During the Trinamool Congress regime, local party workers had allegedly occupied a portion of resident Jharna Kundu’s property and constructed a party office there, she said. “After May 4, they painted the party office saffron and claimed it was a BJP office. It was only after I informed the local BJP leaders that the illegal structure was demolished with bulldozers,” Ms. Kundu said.

Several such instances of white-and-blue Trinamool Congress party offices being repainted saffron have been reported from different parts of the State, including Asansol, Kanksa and Falta.

During the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election campaign, BJP leaders, including Suvendu Adhikari and Dilip Ghosh, promised to replicate the governance model introduced in Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath. They cited the use of bulldozers in Uttar Pradesh to demolish illegal structures as an example of decisive governance.

Within days of assuming office, bulldozers began rolling through Kolkata. From stalls outside New Market to buildings in the predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods of Topsia and Tiljala that had allegedly been constructed without sanctioned plans, demolition drives became a near-daily occurrence. Ministers in the newly elected government visited demolition sites and spoke to the media about the need for such action.

Soon, the anti-encroachment drive extended to railway stations, which serve as a lifeline for lakhs of commuters. After clearing encroachments at Sealdah and Howrah stations, authorities turned their attention to Dum Dum station. Hundreds of people selling tea, phuchka and other fast food items watched as their small establishments were demolished.

Like the removal of statues, the eviction of railway hawkers is often carried out at night. At Dum Dum station, a large contingent of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), the Government Railway Police (GRP) and the West Bengal police was deployed on the night of May 30. Hawkers and leaders of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the trade union wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), resisted the drive. However, they were no match for the large security presence.

“We have all voted for them (the BJP) to come to power. We plead with folded hands not to push us to the ground. We are people of modest means. How will our families survive without this shop? If we were wealthy enough, would we be selling tea for ₹5 at a railway station?” said a tea stall owner at Dum Dum station.

In some cases, eviction drives at Brace Bridge railway station and Hastings have been stayed by the Calcutta High Court. “The latest threat is in Nimtala, near the railway line, where around 800 people are affected. The Calcutta High Court is hearing the matter, but threats of eviction continue every day,” said Srabanti Sarkari, a State committee member of MuktoKantha Mahila Samity, a collective of homeless working women in Kolkata.

Ms. Sarkari said that in Hastings, where around 700 people live under a flyover, the police had attempted to evict residents despite a stay order granted by the Calcutta High Court in September 2025. The order remained in force as of June 2026.

Amid the evictions, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on June 6. At a joint press conference, the two leaders announced an investment of ₹1 lakh crore to upgrade railway infrastructure in the State. The funds will be used for the modernisation of 102 Amrit Bharat stations and the construction of 538 flyovers and underpasses. Both BJP leaders said that the Trinamool Congress government had not cooperated with the Railways in implementing projects. The Trinamool government, however, had followed a policy of not evicting hawkers and settlers.

A day after the meeting between the BJP leaders, several bulldozers arrived on Jadavpur Station Road and began razing shanties, makeshift shops and hawkers’ stalls on the night of June 7.

The eviction drive was met with resistance as CPI(M) leaders Srijan Bhattacharya, Ushasie Chakraborty and Sujan Chakraborty reached the site and demanded rehabilitation for hawkers before the stalls and shanties were demolished. The police resorted to force, baton-charged the protesters and took Mr. Bhattacharya and others into custody.

Mr. Bhattacharya, 33, a prominent young CPI(M) leader, said that instead of removing poverty, the BJP was trying to remove the poor from West Bengal. “The manner in which the BJP is removing hawkers is driven by corporate interests and the aesthetics of the wealthy. They do not want to see what they consider unaesthetic hawkers’ shops at railway stations.... Their idea of modernising a city is to make the poor invisible,” Mr. Bhattacharya said.

The CPI(M) leader said that when the Trinamool Congress came to power after defeating the Left Front, it had acted similarly by painting buildings white and blue, installing the Biswa Bangla logo across the State, renaming roads and Metro stations, and shifting the State Secretariat to Nabanna. “The Trinamool Congress is getting a taste of its own medicine,” he said.

BJP leaders argue that West Bengal cannot progress as long as hawkers occupy footpaths and areas around railway lines. “If the footpaths are occupied and the stations are occupied, public life comes to a standstill for the sake of a few people. How will West Bengal move forward? Those encroaching on such spaces need to reflect on this,” West Bengal Minister and senior BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said.

The developments of the past month have left hawkers and roadside vendors across Kolkata and its suburbs anxious. College Street’s roadside book market, also known as Boi Para, or the neighbourhood of books, is located far from any railway station. For decades, the market has been celebrated as one of Kolkata’s intellectual hubs, not only because it offers second-hand books at affordable prices, but also because it is home to thousands of bookstalls that allow visitors to browse, discover and experience books firsthand.

Book sellers, college students and those who cherish Kolkata’s intellectual culture fear that the books may be next.