Jibon Singha, the self-styled chief of the banned militant outfit Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), has once again surfaced with a video message attacking the Bengal government and reigniting the demand for a Kamtapur state.

In the video, Singha lashed out at the Trinamool Congress-led state government, repeatedly referring to it as the “Kolkatia government” and accusing it of neglecting and oppressing the Koch-Rajbanshi community. He called for political self-determination and urged people from communities including Kamatpuris, Koch-Rajbanshis, Adivasis, Nasya Sheikhs, Gorkhas and Bengalis to unite and "save the state" from what he termed “tyrannical rule".

“The outsider Calcutta government is not the government of our nation's soil. It is occupying a ‘C category state’ by unconstitutional force, looting Kamtapur, and facilitating large-scale Bangladeshi infiltration while turning the sons of the soil the Koch-Rajbanshis into minorities,” he claimed.

He accused the government of using party and police terror, and targeting the Koch-Rajbanshi people through violence and suppression. “We must decide our political destiny ourselves,” Singha said in the video.

The timing of Singha’s message raised brows in political circles. Many see the video as an attempt to stir sentiments around the statehood issue, particularly in Cooch Behar and other Rajbanshi-dominated areas ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

Trinamool leader and North Bengal State Transport Corporation chairman Partha Pratim Roy dismissed Singha’s message as "scripted" and politically motivated. “This is not the first time Jibon Singha has released such videos before elections. He did it before the panchayat and Lok Sabha polls, and now again. He is acting under the BJP’s protection,” Roy alleged.

Roy further pointed to recent controversies in BJP-ruled Assam, where the state government issued an NRC-related notice to Uttam Brajabashi, a Rajbanshi resident of Dinhata. “The BJP’s attitude towards the Rajbanshi community is clear. Now they are using Jibon Singha to distract people, but it won't work,” he said.

In 2022, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma initiated peace talks with the KLO. Singha went to Assam from Myanmar with a small group of cadres and is believed to have remained in Assam since then. He has released multiple video statements, including one in 2023 where he issued threats against Roy.

The BJP has denied any link to Singha’s statements. Cooch Behar BJP district president Abhijit Barman said: “The Assam government has already withdrawn the case against Koch Rajbanshis related to the NRC issue. Trinamool’s allegations are baseless.”

Cooch Behar district has nine Assembly constituencies, and the Rajbanshi vote plays a pivotal role in the region’s landscape. In the 2021 Assembly elections, BJP won seven seats and Trinamool only two. However, after BJP leader Nisith Pramanik became the MP and resigned as MLA from the Dinhata seat, Trinamool won the bypoll, raising its tally to three.