On Wednesday, 6 August, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee launched a blistering attack on the BJP, accusing the party of conspiring to harass Bengali-speaking migrants by purging voter lists, and warned that if genuine voters were disenfranchised, she would expose the Centreโs alleged persecution of Bengal and Bengalis on international platforms.
Addressing a massive rally packed with migrant families, students, and leaders from the tribal heartland of Jhargram, the Trinamool Congress chief alleged that the BJP, through its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls beginning with Bihar, was laying the groundwork for a “backdoor NRC” to systematically disenfranchise minorities, tribals, and opposition supporters.
She also slammed the BJP’s demand for citizenship documents. “Do BJP leaders themselves have their parents’ birth certificates? Mr Amit Shah, arrest me if I am wrong. Do you have your parents’ birth certificates?” Banerjee asked.
โEarlier, the institutional delivery rate was 60 per cent. Even I was born at home. Previously, children were born at home. Where will the certificate come from? Now everything is based on 2002. Those who are demanding this, do they have their birth certificates?”
Banerjee threatened to take up the issue of persecution of Bengalis at global forums if it didnโt stop immediately.
“If they remove the names of genuine Bengalis from the electoral rolls, I will travel the world and expose their (BJP’s) true faces,” Banerjee warned.
“I never speak about our country to the outside world. But if this continues, I will not remain silent. If Bengal faces atrocities, I will tell the whole world how this government is torturing us,” she said, after taking part in a 3-km-protest march.
This was her second warning following the 28 July protest in Kolkata, where she had launched a bhasha andolan (language movement), a fiery escalation of her anti-BJP offensive ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.
With PTI inputs