Makhanlal Sarkar Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography » StarsUnfolded

Some Lesser Known Facts About Makhanlal Sarkar

• Makhanlal Sarkar became a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the age of 16.

• His family remembered that from his childhood he read books dealing with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, and never lost touch with the Sangh’s ideals.

• Sarkar went along with Mukherjee on his historic pilgrimage to Kashmir in 1952, when had started the campaign to raise the Indian Tricolour in Kashmir.

• During that movement, they were caught by police. They were together in jail for awhile.

• In the same time frame, when Congress was in government, Delhi Police arrested Sarkar once again for singing a patriotic song in public.

• He was taken before the court in a public hearing and he was asked to apologise. Sarkar refused. He told the judge that he did not commit any crime; he had sung a song.

• The judge told him to sing the song in court. On hearing, the judge ordered the police to make an A-class railway ticket for Sarkar to come back and also gave him Rs 100 to cover his journey.

• When Morarji Desai was the PM, the then Minister of Road Transport and Highways provided Sarkar with a permit to Siliguri to Gangtok.

• Sarkar then gave back the permit as he claimed he had done no party work for monetary benefits.

• His son Maniklal Sarkar remembered this incident as an example of the values he cherished his father had ingrained in him.

• BJP had been founded in 1980 when Sarkar started making efforts to organise the party in northern West Bengal.

• He was the organising co-ordinator of the districts of West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling.

• In one year, he recruited approximately 10,000 more members to those districts.

• He was the president of theSiliguri organisational district from 1981 till he retired. The leaders of the BJP usually did not stick around in the same organization for more than two years at that time.

• Sarkar continued this activity for decades when RSS and BJP was hardly active in Bengal.

• BJP leader Taron Mandal said Sarkar didn’t go out of his way for publicity and worked from the ground level.

• His daughter-in-law, Meenu Sarkar, who has been married for 25 years, said she never missed a meeting of the parties where he was called.

• During these years, he met with a road accident at some time and his wife requested him to refuse driving. From then on, Sarkar began to ride his bicycle to work.

• His wife Putul Sarkar said that he talked very less about any work towards the party at his home.

• His daughter Sanchita Basak said leaders from TMC, CPI(M) and Congress too respected him. She added that Indian minister Sushma Swaraj was a regular letter writer to him in the past.

• BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya called Sarkar in the year before the West Bengal assembly elections in 2026 and thanked him for his leadership.

• Journalists have contacted Sarkar following the election win of BJP and he has said his entire life’s work has finally repaid him.

• He also said he has personally decided Shankar Ghosh for the Siliguri and feels that it would have not been won without that.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented Sarkar a shawl, hugged him and touched his feet to take his blessings at the swearing-in function of West Bengal ninth Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari at Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata on 9 May 2026.
  

  Narendra Modi touching Makhanlal Sarkar’s feet

• Later, Modi posted on X that Sarkar gave his life to the party and spreading its strength across Bengal.

• Sarkar revealed that he felt that he was rewarded for his long years of honest work after being recognized by the Prime Minister.

• He made one request to the new government. The state should grow in every direction and youth should have good education, employment & job within the state of West Bengal without going anywhere else, he said.