West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday hit out at the BJP over the alleged harassment of Bengali-speaking people in NDA-ruled states, dared the ruling party at the Centre to prove if they were Rohingyas.
CM Banerjee, accompanied by TMC National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee and other party leaders, hit the streets in Kolkata against the detention and deportation of “Bengali migrant workers" to Bangladesh.
“I challenge you to prove that Bengali-speaking people are Rohingyas," the CM said.
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.
Chief Minister Banerjee led the protest march from College Square at around 1:45pm and moved towards Dorina Crossing in Dharmatala. 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 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 in Assam—as evidence of rising linguistic discrimination.
Source: News18