Didi's rally today over B'desh tag on Bengalis
2
Kolkata: Bengal CM
Mamata Banerjee
will hit the streets on Wednesday against the profiling of Bengali-speaking persons as Bangladeshis in BJP-governed states.
The spate of arrests and detentions of Bengali-speaking migrants in Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Delhi — some of which are under the glare of Calcutta High Court — has prompted TMC to rekindle the "Bengali identity and pride" issue that had derailed BJP's strong Hindutva campaign in the 2021 assembly polls.
With months to go for the 2026 assembly polls, what began as isolated complaints of harassment of migrant workers has now evolved into a full-blown political flashpoint.
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TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: "This has become dangerous terrain. We are noticing with concern that despite our repeated protests, BJP-governed states are arresting and detaining Bengali-speaking Indian citizens as suspected Bangladeshis.
Bengalis stay in West Bengal and across India. They are Indian citizens. This is a despicable conspiracy against Bengal that anyone who speaks Bengali is being branded a foreigner in his own country.
And this is only being done by BJP-governed states."
Asked by reporters if TMC was upping the ante with an eye on the 2026 polls, Ghosh said: "Yes, there will be polls in 2026. But this is not just a political rally, it is about our Indianness, our language and our identity."
TMC spokesperson Samir Chakraborty said this was only about BJP targeting Bengal. "Why is this linguistic profiling limited to Bengali-speaking poor people? Tamil is spoken in India and Sri Lanka. Nepali is spoken in India and Nepal. Punjabi is also spoken on both sides of the (India-Pakistan) border. Why are only Bengalis being labelled as foreigners in their own country? Or is this part of a larger design? Is this about BJP bringing NRC through a circuitous route in Bengal?" he said.
An estimated 22.5 lakh migrant labourers from Bengal work across construction, brick kilns, factories and informal sectors across the country.
"There are over 1.5 crore migrant workers in Bengal who live with dignity. But the same cannot be said for BJP-ruled states, where Bengalis are being treated as infiltrators in their own country. Speaking Bengali does not make one Bangladeshi," said TMC MP Samirul Islam, who also heads the state migrant workers' welfare board.
"Harassment of Bengali workers is proof that this is part of a pattern of hatred towards Bengali-speaking people. Do these migrant labourers now need separate visas to visit BJP-governed states?" he asked.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, Trinamool concluded its 24-hour dharna at Jai Hind Camp on Tuesday over the inhuman living conditions faced by locals. Speaking at the conclusion of the sit-in protest, TMC's RS deputy leader Sagarika Ghose said being Bengali-speakers was the residents' only crime. "Electricity has been disconnected, there is a water problem, roads are full of slush and houses are getting flooded during rains.
This is the kind of sub-human condition that these citizens are being forced to live in," Ghose said.
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