Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, at a state government event in Jhargram on Thursday, warned people of the saffron “conspiracy to disenfranchise” the poor and the marginalised, who she believes are unlikely to vote for the BJP.

She also raised the pitch of the saffron ecosystem’s “linguistic apartheid” against Bengal and Bengali-speakers on the eve of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

With each passing day, Mamata has been making it clearer that her pincer attack on the contentious special intensive revision (SIR) with the “backdoor NRC” spin and her Bengal-Bengali oshmita (pride) narrative while accusing the saffron regime of Bengali-phobia would be her weapon of choice against the BJP ahead of the 2026 Assembly election.

The stratagem, unveiled at her party’s Martyrs’ Day event dais on July 21, has been strengthened further by more recent actions of the saffron regime and the Election Commission of India, which she now calls the BJP’s “bonded labour”.

On Thursday, Mamata warned the masses against filling up forms without knowing what they were, asserting that it might lead to removal of their names from the electoral rolls, followed by the NRC exercise.

“If anyone asks you to fill out forms, please do not do it without adequate knowledge. They will surreptitiously remove your names from the voter list, and hand you an NRC notice. We will not tolerate that,” said Mamata.

“It is a ploy of the Centre, and they will do this in the name of verifying names on the voter list. People must cross-check to see if their names remain,” she added.

Mamata underscored how the SIR could complicate matters for genuine citizens who have been on the electoral roll for decades, lambasting the Centre and the commission’s alleged conspiracy to manipulate the popular mandate in favour of the BJP and attempts to implement a “backdoor NRC” that purportedly remains a part of the wider hardline Hindutva project of the Sangh Parivar.

“Every voter should know it is a conspiracy… they want to remove the names of genuine people, send them to Bangladesh. They are labelling (Indian citizens) Rohingya and Bangladeshi only for speaking in Bengali,” said the Trinamool chief.

Mamata’s criticism of the poll panel had been sharper since Wednesday, after it ordered suspension of four Bengal officials on Tuesday for “lapses” in the preparation of electoral rolls.

On Thursday, she again questioned the legality of the move.

“Our officials were suspended although the elections have not yet been declared. Under which rule, what law? We all know that the EC can take action after polls are declared, and we too cooperate, provide them with alternatives,” said Mamata.

“Dr. (B.R.) Ambedkar did not write this Constitution they now seem to be following. There is so much time left before the elections. Do they think they can intimidate our officers into yielding to the NRC through the backdoor?” asked the chief minister. “The state government was, is, and will continue to stand with its employees,” she added, referring to the four officials.

Earlier in the day, her nephew and heir-apparent, Abhishek Banerjee, the Diamond Harbour MP, mounted a similar offensive, during an interaction with journalists at Calcutta airport before departing for Delhi for a number of SIR-related political activities.

Bringing up Nobel laureate polymath Rabindranath Tagore on his death anniversary, Mamata once again pushed the Bengali oshmita agenda.

“Now they even dismiss the very existence of the Bengali language. In which language did Rabindranath Tagore or Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose speak? These opodartho (worthless) people! They say there is no Bengali language?” she asked, referring to the fuel added to the raging fire by the statement of BJP’s IT cell chief and Bengal co-minder Amit Malviya on Monday, who claimed there was “no language called ‘Bengali’” and that the Sylheti dialect was “nearly incomprehensible to Indian Bengalis”.

The remarks have infuriated vast sections of even the most anti-Mamata Bengali Indians, and made many within the BJP anxiously wonder what their electoral ramifications might be.

“People of Bengal are being persecuted for speaking their mother tongue…. We will not tolerate it. Everyone should rise in protest. We are all one and will fight as one for the dignity of Bengal,” added Mamata, referring to the detentions of Bengali migrant workers in BJP-ruled states.

Earlier in the day, leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari warned WBCS officers against Mamata’s “crocodile tears”.

“Her refusal to register EC-directed FIRs is not to protect WB Govt Employees, rather to shield I-PAC and its associates, who have infiltrated our electoral system as data entry operators,” the BJP leader claimed on X.

“Over the years, they’ve perfected scientific rigging, enrolling fictitious voters, deleting Hindu voters’ names, and adding illegal infiltrators; Bangladeshi Muslims to the voter lists. For the sake of the future of West Bengal, it’s time the WBCS Officers perform their Constitutional duties,” Adhikari added.