Overview

• Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led a 3-kilometre protest march through central Kolkata on July 16 to denounce alleged profiling and detention of Bengali-speaking migrants in several BJP-ruled states.
• The Calcutta High Court has ordered the Union home ministry to clarify whether Bengali speakers detained in Delhi and pushed back to Bangladesh were held without due process, while the TMC prepares legal petitions against what it calls unconstitutional deportations.
• BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya and Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya have contested the TMC’s narrative by asserting that over 300 of the 444 workers detained in Odisha lacked valid documents and accusing the party of orchestrating an infiltration agenda.
• Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged that Rahul Gandhi pledged to jail him during a closed-door Congress Political Affairs Committee meeting in Guwahati on July 16, intensifying mutual accusations between the BJP and opposition parties.
• The confrontation over migrant-worker rights has become a keystone of the TMC’s strategy to revive Bengali identity politics and highlight federal autonomy issues in its run-up to the 2026 assembly elections.