Kolkata: Bengali-speaking migrant workers were facing “persecution” in BJP-governed states and being branded Bangladeshis, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Samirul Islam said on Monday.“These migrant workers are being detained without any police records. Authorities are not even contacting the state govt to verify their citizenship. What, then, is the motive of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah?” Samirul, who is also chairman of West Bengal Migrant Worker Welfare Board, said on X.Trinamool posted the same from its official X handle.“Do they intend to punish Bengal in this illegal way — bypassing all Indian laws — simply because they failed to win the state electorally?” Samirul wrote, adding: “If the govt led by @narendramodi and @AmitShah believes it can continue to torment Bengal in this manner, they are mistaken. Bengal will not remain silent. Under the leadership of @MamataOfficial, we will not allow the voices of the poor to be crushed simply because they speak Bengali. We will fight this battle — and we will fight it on our terms.”Samirul said if infiltration had taken place, the responsibility lay with BSF. Reiterating what CM Mamata Banerjee had brought up many times, he said: “There are many migrant workers from other states living in Bengal. Have you ever heard of them facing such treatment?”Samirul also questioned the legality of the detentions. He said cops were detaining people for over 24 hours, without producing them in court. “Which law allows them to do so? Police are even refusing to accept Aadhaar Card, EPIC and ration card as identity proof,” he said.The MP said Bengali was spoken by “polymaths and patriots like Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Was BJP now humiliating stalwarts like these, he asked.BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya said there were similar incidents of migrant workers being pushed back in Tamil Nadu. “We have been watching the same trend in non-BJP states and that is primarily due to the influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. In many of these cases, Bangladeshi immigrants sneak into Bengal, get hold of fake documents from the Barasat-Basirhat area, and then spread into different parts of the country. This has triggered antagonism against migrant workers from Bengal. Moreover, Trinamool’s narrative of outsiders has alienated people from Bengal,” he claimed.
