Bengal polls 2026: Mamata Banerjee warns against vote split, says ‘TMC win key to safety’

BEHRAMPORE: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday told voters that they would remain safe if Trinamool is elected back to office and gave a call to prevent splitting of anti-BJP votes.

“If you vote for Trina-mool, I will be able to protect you. Otherwise, BJP will capture Bengal,” she said at rallies across the minority-dominated Murshidabad, which has the highest number of voters placed under adjudication during the SIR.




Urging people to rally behind her party, she said a vote-split would only help BJP “capture Malda, Murshidabad and north Bengal, which the party will then split from the rest of Bengal. A lot of conspiracy is going on.”

Apart from addressing rallies, the CM led a 3km-march in Behrampore. Murshidabad has 22 assembly constituencies. In 2021, Trinamool Congress won 20 and BJP the rest. Congress and Left Front had fought together in the last assembly elections. This time the district is witnessing a five-cornered contest, with candidates fielded by Trinamool, BJP, Congress, Left Front and the Humayun Kabir-Asaduddin Owaisi combine locking horns with each other.

Attacking Union home minister Amit Shah, the CM said, “By deleting their votes, you have planned to send people to detention camps. As long as I am in office, NRC and detention camps will not be allowed in Bengal.”

She said, “Fight us face-to-face if you have the guts. Why are you taking away people’s rights? You and the PM were elected by those whose names featured on the 2024 voters’ list. If you have won with infiltrators’ votes, why aren’t you resigning?”

Banerjee accused Shah of threatening Bengal govt’s officers. “Who are you to interfere? You are in office at Centre.

I do not have the power to interfere (there); likewise, you do not have the power to interfere here... Mota bhai, why don’t we see you when people die due to riverbank erosion? Why are you unavailable when dredging of the Farakka barrage is needed? You are the one deleting woman voters’ names. You are anti-woman, anti-youth and anti-worker.”

Training her guns at the Union home minister, the CM said, “You have disrespected IPS, IAS, WBPS and WBCS officers. You have not spared EROs either. So many EROs and BLOs have died by suicide. Migrant labourers from Malda and Murshidabad are lynched in BJP-governed states... People are driven out just for speaking Bengali.”

One of the Bengal officers shifted to Tamil Nadu for poll-related work by Election Commission has two spastic children, the CM said. “That officer has always stayed around Kolkata, but has now been sent to Tamil Nadu. What is the reason behind sending Bengal’s officers to Tamil Nadu? Is there an ‘understanding’? Those officers who have been deployed in Bengal have strong BJP links,” she said.

In a reference to Owaisi, she said, “A neta from Hyderabad, along with some local traitors and those who have come from Delhi, must be taught a harsh lesson democratically. We will not let them sell Bengal. Don’t fall for communal provocations. Just as BJP has communal people in their party, here, too, there are some communal individuals who will do anything for money. They don’t stay in Bengal; they only come here during polls.”

Referring to the mass deletion of names from voters’ list during the SIR, the CM said, “Hindus should remember that the names of Hindus have been wrongly deleted as well. You can see it for yourselves in Bagda, Gaighata and Bongaon. Rajbanshis of Cooch Behar, too, have faced deletion.” Addressing her party workers, Banerjee said, “On April 23, take democratic revenge against SIR. On the day of counting, be very vigilant.”