Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 16: With West Bengal likely to be in the list of the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) exercise of the voters’ list after the on-going revision in Bihar, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday was on the streets of Kolkata leading a march to protest against the alleged harassment of Bengali-speaking people in the BJP-ruled states.
Daring the BJP government at the centre to prove that all the Bengali-speaking people in other states were “Rohingyas” and therefore outsiders, Ms Banerjee accused the ECI of “acting like a stooge of the BJP” and wondered if the voter list revision was a “backdoor attempt to implement the National Register of Citizens.”
Claiming that during the “SIR” exercise in West Bengal the people whose names were not on the voters’ list would be jailed branding them as “foreigners,” Ms Banerjee urged the people in the state to ensure that their names were on the list, even if they need to skip work for the day for the verification.
Assembly polls in Bengal are due next year and the poll body has decided to conduct a Special Intensive Revision of voter lists in the state. Such a revision is currently being done in Bihar. Ms Banerjee has alleged that this is part of a conspiracy to delete the names of valid voters, especially the migrants and the underprivileged.
Ms Banerjee led the march in rain-soaked Kolkata, accompanied by TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee and other party leaders, from College Square in the heart of the city at around 1:45pm and moved towards Dorina Crossing in Dharmatala in protest against the detention and deportation of “Bengali migrant workers” to Bangladesh. Nearly 1,500 police personnel were deployed along the 3-kilometre-long route to maintain order. The protest march also disrupted vehicular traffic in the city due to barricades and diversions.
Amid the TMC protest, Bengal LoP and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari reached the Election Commission office, demanding the deletion of “Rohingya” names from the voters’ list. As many as 50 BJP MLAs joined him at the ECI office.
Notably, the protest was organised a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to the state. The protest was joined by thousands of TMC workers and supporters. Similar rallies also took place across various district headquarters in West Bengal.
With assembly elections less than a year away, the TMC is intensifying its campaign focused on regional identity. The party pointed to recent incidents—such as the detention of migrant workers in Odisha, eviction drives in Delhi, and a foreigner tribunal’s notice to a farmer in Cooch Behar and in Assam—as evidence of rising linguistic discrimination.
Accusing the BJP-led central and state governments of targeting Bengali migrants, she said Bengal fought for India’s freedom, and BJP should be ashamed. “I challenge you to prove that Bengali-speaking people are Rohingyas,” the CM said and warned the saffron party of dire political consequences if it did not put an immediate stop to such actions.
The Trinamool Congress chief accused the BJP of rigging polls in Maharashtra and Delhi by “removing names from electoral rolls.” “BJP won in Maharashtra by removing names from electoral rolls; it is doing the same in Bihar now. BJP has plans to remove names from Bengal’s electoral rolls, we will fight them inch by inch,” the TMC leader added.
The chief minister claimed that there are 22 lakh migrant workers from Bengal working in different states, and they have valid identity documents. “What does BJP think? They will hurt Bengalis? They are calling them Rohingya. Rohingya are in Myanmar, not here. 22 lakh poor migrant workers are being targeted. I appeal to them to return home. They will be safe here. The BJP is sending Bengali speakers to detention camps. Is West Bengal not in India?” Ms Banerjee said.
“I will challenge the central government notices which were surreptitiously sent to BJP-ruled states to harass Bengali-speaking people and detain them at the slightest suspicion,” the Trinamool Congress supremo alleged. “I am ashamed and disheartened at the Centre and the BJP’s attitude towards Bengalis,” Ms Banerjee claimed.
Expressing her resolve to fight the BJP “inch by inch” if it tried to “persecute” Bengali-speaking people, she said that the saffron camp should remain prepared for a fresh round of ‘Khela Hobey’ (the game-is-on slogan coined ahead of the 2021 state polls) during the Assembly elections in 2026. “I have decided to speak more in Bangla from now on, hold me in detention camps if you can,” she said while attacking the BJP.
Countering the BJP’s charge of her government backing Bangladeshi infiltrators, she said, “The border is under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Why aren’t they stopping infiltrators?” “They are saying they will check the 2002 voter list. So many people have died, so many babies have been born. When the voter list revision begins, skip work if need be, but ensure your name is on the list,” she said, warning that those whose names are not on the list might also be sent to jail.
Ms Banerjee, who is in her third term at Bengal’s helm, faces her next poll fight next year. Besides anti-incumbency, her government faces allegations of corruption and has come under fire for incidents such as the RG Kar hospital rape-murder case and a law student’s sex assault.
Against this backdrop, the Trinamool is relying on its tried-and-tested ‘outsider’ offensive against the main opposition BJP. It has alleged a systematic pattern of linguistic profiling, unlawful detentions, and attempts to brand Bengali speakers as “illegal immigrants.” Ms Banerjee projected some of the stray incidents as a systemic pattern to target Bengalis. Coming a year before the polls, this rally sets the tone for the Trinamool campaign, as it plays up identity politics to prevail over the BJP.
BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, has questioned if “Bengali asmita” is being flaunted to shield the presence of “Bengali-speaking Rohingyas and illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.” “And if she is so concerned about Bengali identity, why don’t you hear the cries of the thousands of Bengalis who, due to your corruption, lost their teaching jobs and are protesting on the streets? Where does Bengali identity go when your government and administration, despite having competent and skilled Bengali officers, seeks out ‘outsiders’ who will merely follow your orders?’
“The people of Bengal know that you prioritise nothing but vote-bank politics, so everyone well understands that your politics of Bengali identity is merely an attempt to divert attention from your mountain of corruption,” Mr Adhikari said on X.