Kolkata: Trinamool’s 2026 assembly poll strategy is likely to focus on tapping the Bengal-first sentiments of the state’s 7.6 crore voters.The party’s last Martyrs’ Day rally before the 2026 election showcased Bengali migrant labourers “harassed in BJP-governed states and Bengal residents facing NRC queries” as chief minister Mamata Banerjee called for a renewed “Bhasha Andolan (language movement)” from next week.“Hold meetings and rallies every weekend to protest against the attack on your language,” she exhorted the Esplanade audience — by all estimates larger than last year’s crowd — as she asked Trinamool MPs to make the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the Parliament campus the venue of their protest against the “violence against Bengal” and urged sports persons and “people from cultural background” to join in.Banerjee on Monday modified the immensely successful 2021 “khela hobe” slogan, which revolved around football in the last assembly poll, to include cricketing metaphors. “Bowl them (the BJP) out” and “hit them for a six” combined with references to BJP and its allied organisations’ “movements against eating fish and meat” as Banerjee used Bengal’s love for sports, its cuisine and its language as a bulwark against BJP’s “Hindu-Muslim” narrative.“Why are there attacks on the Bengali language? Bengal fought for freedom, the renaissance began in Bengal. Bengal gave birth to Rabindranath, Bankimchandra and Nazrul. The National Anthem was written here. We will take the fight to Delhi if Bengalis are arrested in other states. I am not one to back down. Remember Singur-Nandigram?” she asked.“They are vandalising shops and saying: ‘Don’t eat fish, don’t eat meat.’ I dare you to try doing it once in Bengal,” Banerjee said, asking her audience to “speak more Bengali”.“You saw the result of their attack on Vidyasagar’s bust?” she asked BJP, referring to the 2019 incident on Bidhan Sarani that had a significant impact on voting in Kolkata. BJP would pay again, she said, accusing it of torturing Matuas in Maharashtra, sending “NRC letters” to Rajbanshis and “breaking a Kali temple in Assam”.“You once used to accuse me of not allowing Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja. Now, all of a sudden, you have remembered Ma Durga and Ma Kali. Ma Durga is our state and the nation’s asset. Durga Puja has been granted the United Nations intangible heritage status. We will have a Durga Aangan in Bengal just like Digha’s Jagannath temple,” she said, reminding the audience of “the central government circular on camps and detention centres”.“Over 1,000 people have been imprisoned in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan. Some are even being sent to Bangladesh,” she said, adding that the BJP’s comeuppance would come with “people imprisoning its leaders in future”.Banerjee then accused the Election Commission of “sitting in Gujarat and disenfranchising Bengalis and removing Bengalis from the voters’ list”, promising protests in Delhi. “The EC has already removed 40 lakh names in Bihar,” she added, before taking on her Assam counterpart, Himanta Biswas Sarma (“who cannot handle his own state properly)”, for meddling in Bengal’s affairs. She then invited Uttam Kumar Brajabasi to stand beside her on the dais. “Assam has sent an NRC notice to a person residing in Coochbehar for 50-odd years. They must answer for this,” she said.Banerjee also targeted PM Narendra Modi, accusing him of being “controlled by America”. “Why did you fail to get PoK? Where was your protest when the US sent back planes full of Indians back to India?” she asked before asking the audience to help her achieve “paribartan (change)” at Centre.
