Chief minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the saffron ecosystem over detention and harassment of Bengali-speaking people in the BJP-ruled states on Monday while bringing Uttam Kumar Brajabasi, a Cooch Behar resident, on the dais at her mega Martyrs’ Day rally in Calcutta to push her “Bengali Asmita (selfhood)” narrative.

Uttam, a resident of Sadialerkuthi village in Cooch Behar, was served a notice by the foreigners’ tribunal in Assam on January this year. It was alleged that he was an illegal migrant who had entered the neighbouring state.

“The Assam CM (Himanta Biswa Sarma) cannot control his own state, and yet he is poking his nose into Bengal. If you don’t stop, I will ask Sushmita Dev (Trinamool’s Rajya Sabha member from Assam) to start a movement. We will all go together. Let’s see how many of us you can fit into detention camps!” Mamata roared at the rally in Esplanade.

She said Uttam had been living in Cooch Behar for 50 years and yet the Assam government issued him an NRC notice.

“He is a Rajbanshi brother. What right does the BJP have to do this? The BJP must answer. The Matua community is being tortured. What is the answer to that?”
Mamata asked.

Over the past few weeks, Mamata and the Trinamool leadership have been flagging the BJP’s “anti-Bengal” narrative to exert pressure on the saffron camp.

Mamata, by bringing Uttam on the dais and referring to the recent detention of Matua members in Pune, Mahahashtra, sought to prove that not just Bengali-speaking minorities but also Hindus were being harassed by the BJP.

She took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without naming him, while referring to his “call for a real change” in Bengal. Modi, at a public meeting in Durgapur on July 18, had said that Bengal needed to get rid of Trinamool and added that the drive against the Rohingya and other infiltrators would continue across the country.

“You are sending everyone to jail. When, in the days to come, the people put you in jail democratically… you must decide now what you will eat then. You claim that with ‘parivartan’, development will follow. You have been in Delhi for 11 years. What are the developments you have made?” asked Mamata.

Mamata clarified that her government acted proactively in some of the recent incidents of crime against women, an issue which the BJP, including Modi, had repeatedly highlighted. “They said two female students were tortured here. We took immediate action. One case is with the CBI. We never offered protection to anyone. But can the BJP answer why a girl was burnt to death in (BJP-ruled) Odisha? Can you answer?” said Mamata.

Around 600 kilometres apart in Siliguri, Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and a known Mamata-baiter, played the Rohingya card again, alleging that “Trinamool has won elections with the support of Rohingyas and through rigging”.

“It is not Bengalis but the Rohingya and infiltrators who are being questioned and detained by law-enforcing agencies,” Adhikari said at a public meeting in Chunabhati Ground in Siliguri.

The meeting was organised after a march by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha to Uttarkanya, the state’s branch secretariat in Siliguri.

“For the Prime Minister, any Hindu coming to India from other countries is a refugee and will be provided with all assistance. But we will not let the Rohingyas and Bangladeshi infiltrators settle here,” Adhikari said.