Mamata slams BJP for 'targeted persecution' of Bengalis in Delhi's Jai Hind colony

Kolkata: With the Trinamool Congress taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal over harassment of the migrant workers from the state in Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday protested against the alleged move to evict the Bengali-speaking people from a colony in Delhi.

“I am deeply disturbed by the alarming news of harassment emerging from Jai Hind Colony in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi — a settlement predominantly inhabited by Bengalis who built the city as part of its unorganised workforce,” Mamata posted on X.

The TMC over the past few days stepped up its attacks on the governments of the BJP-ruled states for the detention of migrant workers from West Bengal by police and, in some cases, even deportation to Bangladesh, allegedly disregarding their claim of being genuine citizens of India.

Mamata alleged that the water supply to the Jai Hind Colony in Delhi had been discontinued on orders from the BJP-led government in the National Capital Territory, electricity meters had been confiscated, and power supply had also been abruptly cut on Tuesday.

“Residents also claim Delhi Police, backed by RAF personnel, blocked private water tankers they had arranged and paid for. A forced eviction is currently underway despite the matter being sub-judice following another transgression last December by the Delhi Police,” she alleged on X, wondering: “How can we claim to be a democratic republic if the basic rights to shelter, water, and electricity are being trampled upon?”

The TMC supremo trained her gun on the BJP government led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta in Delhi, just weeks after six residents of Birbhum in West Bengal, including a pregnant woman and three children, had been detained by the police in the National Capital Territory on June 18 on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

They had been handed over to the Border Security Force and had been pushed back to Bangladesh on June 26. The TMC government in Kolkata were now trying to bring them back. Their families in West Bengal moved the Calcutta High Court with habeas corpus petitions.

Mahua Moitra, a Lok Sabha member of the TMC, alleged on Thursday that 23 workers from her constituency in West Bengal had been illegally detained with 421 other Bengali-speaking migrant workers at a police station in Jharsuguda in Odisha, although they had the necessary documents to prove them to be citizens of India.

“There are over 1.5 crore migrant workers in Bengal who live with dignity. But the same cannot be said for BJP-ruled states, where Bengalis are being treated as infiltrators in their own country,” Mamata posted on X on Thursday. “Speaking Bengali does not make one a Bangladeshi. These individuals are as much citizens of India as anyone else, regardless of what language they speak.”

With the assembly elections in West Bengal barely 10 months away, the TMC trained its gun on the BJP, highlighting the series of similar incidents of branding of Bengali-speaking migrant workers as illegal Bangladeshis in Maharashtra, Odisha, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, all ruled by the saffron party, and their detention and, in some cases, deportation to Bangladesh.

“Having failed in their attempts to deprive Bengalis in West Bengal, the BJP is now exporting their Bangla-Birodhi (anti-Bengal and anti-Bengali) agenda to other parts of the country in a strategic and systemic manner,” the TMC supremo alleged on Thursday.