KOLKATA: “Bengalis are being profiled, harassed, deported, lynched. This isn’t incidental, it’s a systematic, statesponsored ethnic purge. You are targeting a language, a culture, a people… You lit this fire, BJP. Now face the fury!” Saturday’s post on the Trinamool Congress’ X handle succinctly summed up the party’s strategy for the 2026 Assembly polls, even as it tried to downplay its own role in facilitating grant of identity papers to Bangladeshi infiltrators. With these documents under scrutiny across the country, the ruling Trinamool Congress has plunged headlong into an emotionally charged campaign centred on identity politics. At the heart of this campaign is a powerful narrative: the defence of Bengali linguistic and cultural pride amid what the party alleges is an organised effort to harass, criminalise and deport Bengali-speaking migrant workers from BJP-ruled states.
The finding of the dismembered body of a 35-year-old migrant worker from Bengal’s North 24-Parganas district in Maharashtra’s Vasai area last week and the reports of assault on four other workers from Murshidabad in Tamil Nadu have given fresh ammunition to the Trinamool Congress In another incident, a labourer from Malda was allegedly detained and deported from Rajasthan despite having valid citizenship documents. These incidents, Trinamool leaders claim, are part of a wider attempt to delegitimize Bengali identity across India, even though BJP leaders across the country have said that the drive is against all those illegal migrants who have crossed over from Bangladesh with the tacit help of the Trinamool Congress and have now spread across the country. All reasons, therefore, existed for the Trinamool to mount a full-fledged denial operation. That reached its crescendo with twin rallies in the heart of Kolkata. Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool scion Abhishek Banerjee addressed mammoth rallies in central Kolkata on July 16 and its Shaheed Diwas on July 21.
The BJP, Mamata Banerjee alleged, was trying to reduce Bengalis to the status of “infiltrators” in their own country. She brought the teeming crowds to boiling point, claiming the Centre had secretly instructed BJPruled states to arrest and deport Bengali-speaking individuals, often without cause. Mamata also pointed out that Bengal hosts nearly 15 million workers from other regions. “Why are you torturing Bengalis? People are being arrested even after showing documents. What was their fault? Just speaking in Bengali?” she demanded. The Trinamool Congress has not been alone in raising the alarm. On July 15, the CPI(M), too, organised a march to show solidarity with Bengali-speaking migrants. The sense of persecution is reinforced by some wellpublicised cases. In Delhi’s Jai Hind Colony in Vasant Kunj, home to hundreds of Bengali-speaking daily wage workers, Trinamool MPs and leaders, including Sagarika Ghose, Saket Gokhale, Dola Sen and Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, joined sit-in protests after reports emerged that residents with valid Aadhaar and voter ID cards were being branded “illegal”, and then denied basic amenities like power and water. Similar targeting was reported from Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Assam.
One case involved Nizamuddin Sheikh, a 34-yearold mason from Murshidabad’s Hariharpara. Picked up by the Mumbai police on June 10 despite having proper identification, he was flown to Tripura and allegedly pushed across the Bangladesh border by the Border Security Force. “They beat us with lathis and boots,” Nizamuddin said after his return. “We had no phones, no money, only fear.” Once he contacted the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), he was eventually repatriated via Cooch Behar on June 17. Others such as Minarul Sheikh from Murshidabad, Mostafa Kamal Sheikh from Bardhaman, and Fazel and Taslima Mandal from North 24 Parganas were also reportedly deported, and later brought back through state intervention. Acting on a petition regarding six detainees from Birbhum’s Pikor village allegedly deported to Bangladesh, the Calcutta High Court on July 11 asked the Union Home Ministry to submit a detailed explanation of its deportation drive. “It’s unconstitutional. The BSF did not contact the state before deporting Indian citizens,” says Samirul Islam, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP and chairperson of the West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board. Some 2.2 million migrant workers from Bengal are registered with the board, he said. Political observer Subhomoy Maitra told The Sunday Guardian: “The Trinamool has cast its campaign as a battle for ‘Bangaliyana’, a composite Bengali identity that transcends religion and caste. The emotional charge around this is aimed squarely at consolidating support among Bengal’s rural electorate, which provides the bulk of the migrant workforce.”
The BJP has pushed back hard. On the same day as Mamata’s rally, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari met West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal and flagged what he called an “abnormal rise in population” in the state’s border districts. He cited the arrest of a suspected operative of the Bangladeshi militant organisation Ansarullah Bangla Team in Assam, who allegedly voted thrice in Bengal. Claiming that 80 of Bengal’s 340 blocks are now “manned by officers who are illegal immigrants”, Adhikari demanded an exhaustive combing of the voter rolls. Earlier, he had dismissed the Trinamool’s allegations of persecution as deliberate exaggeration, stating that only “Rohingya infiltrators” were being deported. The Trinamool countered this with names and emotional testimonies, including those of Hindu victims. Uttam Kumar Brojobasi, a Rajbanshi from Dinhata in Cooch Behar, reportedly received a Foreigners Tribunal notice from Assam despite living in West Bengal for over five decades. Uttam Kumar Brojobasi was even felicitated and showcased by Mamata Banerjee on the Shaheed Diwas stage.
Even Bengal’s Matua community, traditionally aligned with the BJP, is feeling the heat. Aarush Adhikari from Habra, working in Pune, was arrested despite possessing a Matua identity card issued by the BJP-linked All India Matua Sangha. “We’re trying to get my brother out. He has all the documents,” his brother Bhagirath says. Meanwhile, newly anointed BJP state chief Samik Bhattacharya declared: “No Bengali Hindu and no Indian Muslim will have to provide any document to prove their citizenship. This is Bengal BJP’s assurance. Trinamool’s ugly politics will backfire.” But this statement, or its omission of the category “Bengali Muslims”, has intensified scrutiny of the BJP’s position, especially in light of a statement from Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on July 9 that it was easy to find out the number of Bengalis in Assam if all its speakers named “Bengali” as their mother tongue during census.
As his comments created a furore for trying to equate all Bengalis with “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants”, Sarma denied he is antiBengali and claimed that Bengali speakers in Assam understand his campaign against illegal infiltration. The controversy has opened up larger questions around migration and governance. Garga Chatterjee, founder of the Bengali nationalist group Bangla Pokkho, criticised the West Bengal government for not doing enough to prevent the exodus of Bengali workers. “Why is there no reservation for Bengali speakers in government jobs?” he asks. “The Trinamool should focus on creating jobs instead of just exploiting the issue politically.” Yet Mamata Banerjee has framed the issue in personal terms. “I dare you to send me to a detention camp. I’ll speak more in Bengali,” she said on July 16. As Bengal hurtles toward 2026, the Trinamool’s assertion that this is not just a political campaign but a cultural resistance movement may resonate beyond its traditional support base. Language, identity and dignity have become the central axes around which the state’s politics will revolve in the coming months.
