Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday continued to breathe fire over the saffron regime’s alleged Bengali-phobia while her party participated in INDIA programmes in Parliament against the special intensive revision (SIR) by the “compromised” Election Commission.

Mamata, at a state government event to commemorate the death anniversary of Bengali film icon Uttam Kumar, spoke on the need to enrich and spread Bengal’s culture before bringing up the current controversy.

“With due respect, a kind of linguistic terrorism has been declared against the Bengali language. Another bhasha andolon (language movement) is needed to awaken everyone. People are being harassed for speaking Bengali in many places,” she said.

“Bengali is the fifth most spoken language in the world, and second in Asia. Around 30 crore people in the world speak Bengali. Today, (Indian) Bengali speakers are being sent to jail. I cannot accept this, and I believe you cannot either,” added the Trinamool chief in her bid to make the "persecution" of Bengali-speaking Indians in BJP-ruled states a main plank for the 2026 Assembly polls.

“People cannot be detained just for speaking Bengali. We cannot tolerate this. Programmes must be organised on this issue at all levels. This issue is not just mine, this belongs to everyone. Bengal is everything to us. We must protect this land.”

Later in the day, she wrote on X: “Have been increasingly receiving reports of detentions of 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.”

“Have been separately and increasingly receiving reports from other States like Rajasthan etc about illegal “pushbacks” of West Bengal citizens with all proper documents to Bangladesh directly!! Our officers have received copies of their appropriate documents! There are tortures and tortures on hapless poor Bengali workers from West Bengal in these States,” added Mamata. “I am shocked to see these terrible atrocities of double-engine governments on Bengalis in India.... This is atrocious and terrible. We are not going to tolerate this. Stop this linguistic terror.”

Mamata’s parliamentary party has been busy in New Delhi this week, participating in INDIA bloc events against the controversial SIR for the Bihar electoral roll, which is the EC — backed by the BJP — is likely to replicate in Bengal.

Tens of lakhs of names are already in the process of getting eliminated from the Bihar electoral roll ahead of its Assembly election, while many in Bengal BJP have claimed they would get the EC to drop around one crore names from the Bengal electoral roll before the 2026 elections.

Trinamool — which actively stands with the RJD, the DMK and the Congress on the SIR issue — hopes it would find adequate backing from INDIA partners nationally on the BJP’s alleged Bengali-phobic persecution.

Mithun’s denial

The BJP’s national executive member and actor Mithun Chakraborty, a former Rajya Sabha member of Trinamool, refused to entertain the idea that Bengali-speaking Indians were being harrassed in BJP-ruled states, when asked by journalists.

“No, no, nowhere has that happened... nowhere. These are all lies.... Bengali-speaking people have not faced any kind of unnecessary harassment anywhere in the country.... She is trying to create a false narrative and instigate the masses,” he claimed.

“If someone is a Bangladeshi, they will obviously be identified as Bangladeshi,” he added.

Chakraborty said SIR would take place. “Fake and bogus voters have to be removed. Only then will elections be fair.... If infiltrators are removed from the electoral roll, Trinamool won’t even get 70 seats here,” he claimed.

Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh called Chakraborty a "traitor" who was Mamata's "biggest admirer when she sent him to the Rajya Sabha". Ghosh said Chakraborty fled to the BJP when "he got mired in certain cases". "He wears winterwear in hot weather and says things that make no sense... not to be taken seriously,” Ghosh said. "The truth about the SIR and persecution of Bengalis is out in the open."