Kolkata | West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the state’s Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari were found marching in rain-soaked Kolkata on Wednesday over the contentious issues of “illegal infiltrators” and “harassment of Bengali-speaking people in BJP-ruled states”, albeit from their opposite political poles.
The issues are likely to dominate political discourses in the state in the run-up to the crucial assembly elections in 2026.
Banerjee rekindled the TMC's Bengali identity pitch and lashed out at the BJP-led Centre for what, she called, was its policy of torturing Bengali-speaking people after labeling them as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingya Muslims.
Adhikari, on the other hand, urged the EC to ensure that voters' list in the state was free from Rohingyas.
The day simultaneously witnessed a Calcutta High Court direction to the Centre to place before it all records regarding litigations before the Delhi HC over the deportation of persons found to be illegally residing in the national capital.
The court verbally asked the Centre's lawyer to “ascertain” whether there is any truth in the allegation that Bengali-speaking people were being questioned over their nationality in different places in the country after the Bengal government's counsel raised the issue.
Banerjee was speaking at a public meeting after leading a protest march in central Kolkata against the alleged torture of migrant Bengali-speaking workers from the state.
She was joined in her rally by TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and other senior party leaders - ministers and MPs - besides thousands of supporters from Kolkata and its neighbourhood.
Adhikari, along with other BJP MLAs, held a separate march from the state assembly to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) where he submitted a memorandum.
Banerjee warned the saffron party of dire political consequences if it did not put an immediate stop to such actions and alleged that the Centre's ruling dispensation was "influencing the Election Commission of India" to achieve its political ambitions..
"I have seen a notification that the Centre has issued in February this year, which says that people can be kept in jails for a month without trial under the slightest suspicion," she claimed.
The TMC supremo described the situation as "more than an emergency" and asked the BJP what it has been doing after criticising Indira Gandhi and observing an anti-Emergency day.
"I will challenge those notices which were surreptitiously sent to BJP-ruled states to harass Bengali-speaking people," Banerjee alleged at the rally, which terminated at the Dorina Crossing in Esplanade after marching along a nearly three-km route.
Stating she was ashamed and disheartened at the Centre and the BJP's attitude towards Bengalis, Banerjee tore into the saffron camp's alleged persecution of migrant workers for speaking their mother tongue.
"I have now decided to speak more in Bangla from now on. Hold me in detention camps if you can before you throw other Bengalis in jail," she said, asking the BJP to remain prepared for a fresh round of 'Khela Hobey' during the assembly elections in 2026.
The 'game-is-on' slogan was coined by the party ahead of the 2021 state polls.
Asserting that there are nearly 22 lakh migrant workers from West Bengal working in other parts of the country, who have valid identity documents like Aadhaar and PAN cards, Banerjee said she would not tolerate any disrespect meted out to them on flimsy grounds.
"What right does the BJP have in harassing Bengalis like this, even arresting them and forcefully pushing them back to Bangladesh? Is West Bengal not part of India?" she asked.
Banerjee criticised the EC's Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar ahead of the assembly polls there.
"Whenever there's an election, the BJP starts removing names from electoral rolls. I request the Election Commission not to broker BJP's agenda. I heard that they have deleted 30.5 lakh voters in Bihar. That's how the BJP won the Maharashtra and Delhi elections. They are applying the same plans for Bihar and Bengal," she said.
"But here, we will fight them inch by inch and will let them know we will not give in so easily," she stated.
Speaking from his diametrically opposite political pole, Adhikari described the Bengal CM’s protest march as a rally to protect the Rohingyas.
"We have Rohingya Muslims in almost all places of West Bengal. We have told the CEO to ensure that the voters' list is free from any Rohingya infiltrators. If in Bihar, Rohingyas were removed from the voters' list, then that same model should be followed in Bengal. We have also told the CEO to hold an immediate house-to-house survey for the purpose," he told reporters.
Adhikari also urged the CEO to ensure transparent operations and said the officer should seek 50 per cent of state and central government workers on deputation for election-related duties.
“Mamata Banerjee is not worried about the changes in demography. She is only worried about the voters' list," he said.
A division bench of the Calcutta High Court, meanwhile, directed the Centre to file an affidavit with regard to the petitioners' averment that they were already deported and that the issue was being litigated before the Delhi High Court.
