Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday alleged that poor Bengali-speaking workers from the state are being harassed, detained and even pushed into Bangladesh by authorities in certain BJP-ruled states, dubbing the incidents as acts of “linguistic terror”.
In a strongly worded post on X, Banerjee accused the governments in Haryana and Rajasthan of unleashing “tortures and tortures (sic)” on Bengali-speaking citizens, and questioned what the BJP was trying to prove through such alleged actions.
“Have been increasingly receiving reports of detentions and atrocities on our Bengali-speaking people from different districts of West Bengal in Gurgaon, Haryana. West Bengal police is receiving these reports from Haryana police in the name of requests for identity searches,” she said in the post.
The TMC supremo said she has been receiving reports from states like Rajasthan about illegal “pushbacks” of West Bengal citizens having proper documents to Bangladesh directly.
“There are tortures and tortures on hapless poor Bengali workers from West Bengal in these states. I am shocked to see these terrible atrocities of double-engine governments on Bengalis in India. What do you want to prove? This is atrocious and terrible. We are not going to tolerate this. Stop this linguistic terror,” Banerjee said.
The chief minister’s remarks came amid growing political tensions between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections.
TMC leaders have long accused the BJP of targeting Bengalis outside the state and attempting to suppress regional identity and language in the name of nationalism.
On July 21, during the party’s annual Martyrs’ Day rally, Banerjee had called for a ‘language movement’ to resist what she termed the BJP’s “linguistic terrorism”.
There was no immediate response from the governments of Haryana or Rajasthan.
However, BJP leaders in Bengal have previously dismissed such allegations by the TMC as “baseless” and “fabricated for political gain”.
The latest salvo by Banerjee also signals her intent to politicise the issue of Bengali identity, possibly as part of her broader campaign strategy.
