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Time of India
a day ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Didi's rally today over B'desh tag on Bengalis
1 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. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata 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.
Time of India
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
TMC slams BJP govt as 200 Bengali migrants ‘tagged B'deshis', ‘detained' in Odisha
Kolkata: Multiple petitions have been filed in the Calcutta High Court urging its immediate intervention after more than 200 Bengali-speaking migrants from Bengal were allegedly tagged 'Bangladeshis' and detained in Odisha. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Bengal Police has already sent verification reports of multiple detainees to their Odisha counterparts. "This is heading into dangerous territory," Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Wednesday. "Bengalis will speak Bengali. Is that a crime? And why is this happening only in BJP-governed states," Ghosh asked. Odisha cops said as many as 448 suspected Bangladeshis and Rohingya were identified and shifted to centres in Jharsuguda and Jagatsinghpur. TMC MP Mahua Moitra slammed Odisha govt, demanding the immediate release of 23 workers from Nadia's Mirzapur, allegedly detained at Jharsuguda since Monday night. "All of these 23 workers have valid documentation, Aadhaar cards, EPICs, everything they need to work there. India is a union of states, and every single citizen has the right to life, the right to livelihood, and the right to work anywhere within the territory of India. Please do not think that there is no one to fight for these workers. There is absolutely no reason to detain them," stated Moitra. "Release them or we will file 23 habeas corpus petitions in every court in this land," she added. Moitra said that such incidents never took place during the 24-year period when the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD govt was in office in Odisha, but ever since BJP came to office, such incidents had become a daily occurrence. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "I urge Odisha govt to think... It is easy for you to prey, to harass, to intimidate poor workers who go to earn a livelihood. Have you ever thought that 50% of Odisha's tourism revenue comes from Bengalis? If you harass and detain our workers, Bengali tourists will stop going to Odisha. They are the ones who stay at your hotels, who eat at your restaurants, who visit your places of pilgrimage. What will happen?" she said. According to TMC netas, over 200 migrant workers from Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda, Birbhum, East Burdwan and South 24 Parganas have been picked up in recent weeks by Odisha cops and kept at interrogation centres in Jharsuguda. TMC Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam alleged that these detentions were part of a "deliberate pattern of harassment" based on the workers' language and origin.
Time of India
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
TMC, BJP in war of words over fact-finding team's recommendations
New Delhi/Kolkata: Trinamool Congress and BJP were locked in a war of words on Tuesday after the latter's fact-finding team recommended a probe by a central agency into the alleged gang rape of a law student in Kolkata. The team claimed the state police's handling of the case raised suspicion of attempts being made to save the culprits. The team also recommended that a request be made to the Centre for "effective measures" to control the situation in the state, said former Union minister and former Mumbai Police chief Satya Pal Singh at a press conference. Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh told reporters: "This BJP fact-finding committee, led by Satyapal Singh, is shamelessly lying and distorting the truth. What happened is a social crime, and an inquiry is underway. Police arrested the culprits within a few hours, an investigation is ongoing; so why do they need to create drama?" You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata "They are blaming the family for not answering the phone, blaming the media, and so on. If any wrongdoing occurs here, Mamata Banerjee govt takes police action. What about UP, MP, Tripura, Manipur, Gujarat, Delhi, Odisha? A few days ago, a police constable in UP raped a student, and two days before that, a nurse was murdered inside a hospital in MP. Does this fact-finding team go there or not?" he added. Sharing the findings of the team with the media, Singh alleged that the handwritten complaint submitted by the survivor was tampered with to remove names of the accused. Rajya Sabha MP Manan Kumar Mishra claimed the Kolkata Police commissioner (Manoj Jha) was evasive in his reply when the inquiry committee asked him to clarify why names were erased. Ghosh said: "BJP fact-finding teams don't go to BJP-governed states because they only get travel allowances to visit Bengal. If political tourists come to Bengal and want to find facts, why didn't they include the woman who spoke out against Karthik Maharaj?"
NDTV
07-07-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Bengal BJP's "Bold" Move That Drew Trinamool's "Copycat" Jibe
Kolkata: A rather unique flashpoint has emerged in Bengal politics with the warring BJP and Trinamool claiming credit for a move that signifies the importance of the party over its leadership. The change pertains to the Bengal BJP removing photos of its leaders from the media backdrop kept at their Kolkata headquarters. While the shift was evident in the state BJP's latest press conference, the Trinamool claimed that it was their ideology throughout that had been hijacked by the BJP. A video of the presser, addressed by Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya, was posted on the Bengal BJP's social media handles on July 5. It showed the backdrop with only the party's Lotus symbol and photos of its top leaders. The backdrop will now feature only the BJP symbol and no leader's photograph, said a BJP leader, calling it a "powerful shift". But this is not just a design change, he said, pointing out that it reflects the party ideology: "Nation First, Party Second, Self Last." He called it a true celebration of collective leadership, discipline, and values over personalities. But the Trinamool has refused to accept that it is an original idea. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh has called the BJP a "copycat" and accused them of stealing the Trinamool's ideology of placing the party symbol at the highest pedestal. "What Trinamool thinks today, others follow tomorrow. Party symbol is the highest point," he said in an online post, sharing screengrabs from the press conferences of the two political rivals.
Time of India
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Contempt case: Kunal excused from appearing before HC
1 2 Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Monday dispensed with the personal appearance of Kunal Ghosh and other accused in a contempt of court case concerning a ruckus in front of chambers of high court lawyers at Old Post Office Street and Kiran Shankar Roy Road on April 25. The division bench of justices Arijit Banerjee, Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya and Rajarshi Bharadwaj excused the personal appearance upon an undertaking that the alleged contemnors would appear as and when directed by the court. Senior counsel for the accused, Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, opened his argument by pleading that the bench didn't have the jurisdiction to issue a contempt rule. "The CJ on his administrative side assigned the matter to the special bench. It was not a judicial order," he argued. Citing rules under the Calcutta High Court Contempt of Courts Act, 1975, Bandyopadhyay pleaded that the HC could issue a contempt rule on "its own motion" after hearing petitions of contempt that were moved before the bench. Bandyopadhyay pointed out that no such petition had been moved before the division bench of CJ TS Sivagnanam and Justice Chaitali Chatterjee (Das) a day after the incident.
