The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday alleged that Indian citizens from West Bengal working in other states are being deprived of their livelihood by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and, in some cases, by Rohingyas.
Addressing a news conference, BJP's Bengal state president Samik Bhattacharya said, “Genuine Indian citizens from Bengal, working in other states, are having their livelihood snatched by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and, in some cases, by Rohingyas.”
He added that Indian Muslims and Hindus who came to India from Bangladesh owing to persecution have “nothing to worry about” as long as the BJP is in power.
Bhattacharya accused the ruling Trinamool of being afraid of the Election Commission of India's special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. “Just the indication that SIR may be done in Bengal has evoked so much fear, so imagine what will happen when it will really take place,” he said.
According to him, illegal voters in West Bengal would be identified as was done in Bihar.
Calling radicalisation the “biggest problem” in the state, he said recent political developments in Bangladesh have had a fallout in certain border districts of West Bengal.
“This is certainly dangerous for our country's internal security, and this is being compromised in this state,” he said. The central government, he claimed, had flagged the activity of banned organisations, particularly in a north Bengal district.
He also said several states, including BJP and non-BJP-ruled ones, have started verifying the identity of labourers from Bengal. “Those apprehended during such checks have admitted to being Bangladeshis and that they have obtained fake identity cards here,” Bhattacharya said.
Referring to the Delhi police's action and their use of the term “Bangladeshi language”, Bhattacharya justified it by pointing to differences in dialect between Bengali spoken in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
The BJP leader’s remark came amid a controversy triggered by a letter shared by the Trinamool Congress on its X. The letter, issued by an inspector of Lodhi Colony police station in Delhi, had sought a translator from Banga Bhawan for the “Bangladeshi national language” after the arrest of eight individuals suspected of illegally entering India.
The letter stated that during investigation, the suspects were found with national ID cards, birth certificates, and other documents “written in Bangladeshi”, and the police needed a translator to interpret the documents into Hindi and English.
Reacting to this, the Trinamool Congress accused the Delhi police of an official attempt to delegitimise Bangla. “Is there no limit to BJP's hatred for Bengalis? After repeatedly harassing and detaining Bengali-speaking workers across BJP-ruled states, Amit Shah's Delhi Police has now crossed all lines by officially branding our mother tongue, Bangla, as ‘Bangladeshi language’,” the party said.
“This is not a clerical error. It is a calculated insult, an official attempt to strip a constitutionally recognised Indian language of its identity and portray millions of Bengali-speaking Indians as outsiders in their own country,” it added.
The post also noted that Bangla is spoken by more than 25 crore people globally and is one of India's 22 official languages.
