TMC-BJP rally contest over migrants hints at Bengal poll planks for 2026

Two parallel political processions hit the streets of Kolkata on a rain-soaked Wednesday (July 16) afternoon.

While Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee braved the inclement weather to lead a march protesting the alleged branding of Bengali migrant workers as Bangladeshis, her principal rival, BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, headed a rally towards the Chief Electoral Officer’s office, demanding an electoral roll revision along the lines of Bihar’s intensive verification exercise.

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These competing rallies are suggestive of the plank on which the state’s assembly elections, due in less than a year, will be contested.

The incumbent and the challenger seem to be in unanimity in believing that “identity and not performance” would best suit their respective electoral cause.

At the heart of both campaigns lies the poor, Bengali-speaking migrant worker. For TMC, this group represents a symbol of cultural pride and regional identity under siege. For the BJP, the demographic is cast in a shadow of suspicion, entangled in the party’s broader narrative of illegal immigration and national security.

Also read: Mamata Banerjee warns BJP over 'harassment' of Bengali-speaking workers

A questionable drive

The two simultaneous political mobilisations stem from an ongoing crackdown in the BJP-ruled states to identify and deport illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

The drive has been launched based on a home ministry directive to all state governments and Union territories to set up a special task force to identify and deport illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants.

The directive, issued in the wake of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives, mandated the STF to complete the verification process within 30 days, after which the suspects are to be “pushed back” across the border without any legal or diplomatic protocols.

Deported without evidence

The exercise kicked up a political storm when some BJP-ruled states, in the name of expelling illegal migrants, detained Bengali-speaking Indian citizens despite the latter having documentary proof of citizenship. Some were even wrongly deported in complete mockery of the sanctity of citizenship.

Under Indian law, deportation must follow certain processes, including formal orders, verification by foreigners’ tribunals or equivalent judicial institutions and access to legal aid.

None of the due processes appears to have been followed in the pushback exercise, so much so that some deportees, who could contact their families from Bangladesh, had to be brought back.

Also read: After 3 campus rapes, Mamata can’t afford to ignore ticking time bomb TMCP

MEA’s absurd demands

The Centre has yet to make public the exact number of people deported to Bangladesh so far. Some media reports suggest it would be more than 2,000.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated in May this year that India had asked Bangladesh to verify the nationality of 2,369 “illegal migrants” so that they can be deported.

Suspects rounded up in states like Odisha, Delhi, Assam, Gujarat, and Maharashtra were reportedly asked to produce birth certificates and ancestral land records—documentation often unavailable to rural workers.

Assam’s crackdown

In Delhi’s Rohini area, Bengali residents of Jai Hind Colony faced electricity and water cuts following allegations of power theft, with several families accused of being Bangladeshis.

The controversy further intensified after the BJP government in Assam served an NRC notice to a Bengal resident, Uttam Kumar Brajabashi.

Further, 52-year-old Arati Das from West Bengal, who moved to Assam after marrying a man from there in 1991, was forced to return after she was deemed a foreigner there.

Arati’s father was reportedly a school teacher, and she was born in Cooch Behar.

Also read: Delhi slum with Bengali migrants suffers 3-day power, water cut; CM Banerjee alleges bias

Controversy beyond religious identity

These incidents, in addition to the fact that some targeted migrants happened to be Bengali Hindus, extended the controversy beyond religious identity, prompting the TMC to latch on to the opportunity to accuse the BJP of harbouring “anti-Bengali hatred”.

“The spirit of Bengal is incompatible with the divisive ideology of BJP. The Bangla-birodhi zamindars (anti-Bengal landlords) have no regard for our people, our language, our culture, or our identity. Blinded by arrogance, they have now started branding legitimate Bengali-speaking Indian citizens as illegal immigrants,” stated Mamata at a public meeting in central Kolkata after an about 3-kilometre Bengali-pride march.

Appeal to Bengali sentiment

The TMC was successful in countering the BJP’s Hindutva aggression with its Bengali identity narrative in 2021 assembly elections.

It now believes that the slew of attacks could similarly galvanize Bengali sentiment and help secure Mamata Banerjee’s fourth consecutive term as chief minister.

“If BJP thinks they can get away with persecuting Bengalis, they are gravely mistaken. And if they believe that they can manipulate the people’s mandate in 2026 by misusing independent Constitutional bodies, they are in for a rude awakening,” Mamata warned.

Also read: NRC notice by Assam tribunal issued to West Bengal resident, alleges Mamata

BJP eyes Hindu consolidation

Conversely, the BJP remains confident that fears of demographic change will foster Hindu consolidation.

To stoke these concerns, Adhikari demanded a door-to-door review of the voters’ list, claiming that a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls would uncover at least 90 lakh Rohingya infiltrators in West Bengal.

Leading a delegation of BJP legislators to Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal’s office, Adhikari reiterated his party’s stance that electoral integrity in the state is compromised by the presence of illegal migrants.

As both parties double down on identity politics, the real issue is taking the back seat.

Some truth to both claims

There is no denying that the BJP’s claim of illegal migrants — especially Rohingyas — causing demographic imbalance is highly exaggerated and is based on hypothetical notions, similar to the campaign the saffron brigade successfully ran in Assam.

At the same time, the recent arrest of a Pakistani national Ajad Mallik from the state on charges of selling fake identity documents to Bangladeshi nationals point to the existence of illegal immigration rackets in West Bengal.

Over the past several months, both Kolkata and West Bengal police have apprehended multiple individuals involved in producing counterfeit documents to facilitate the illegal entry of numerous Bangladeshi nationals, further substantiating the existence of such operations.

Also read: BJP is labelling Bengali-speaking Indian citizens as Bangladeshis: Mamata

Unfortunately, both the political camps appear more invested in curating politically expedient narratives than confronting inconvenient facts.

Each of Wednesday’s rallies was merely a symbol of the sharply diverging narratives set to shape West Bengal’s upcoming assembly elections, now less than a year away.