Sharpening her ‘Bengali asmita’ pitch ahead of the 2026 polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the BJP of unleashing “linguistic terrorism” on Bengalis, asserting that the fight for identity and language will continue until the saffron party is defeated.

Addressing a massive Martyrs’ Day rally, Banerjee gave a clarion call to defeat the BJP in the 2026 Assembly elections and eventually oust it from power at the Centre, declaring, “If this linguistic profiling doesn’t stop, our resistance movement will reach New Delhi.”

“If needed, there will be another language movement against the BJP’s terrorism on the Bengali language... From July 27, a movement will start in Bengal in protest against the attack on Bengalis, Bengali languag, and ‘Bhasha santras’ (linguistic terrorism),” she announced, positioning the campaign as a mass resistance to the alleged marginalisation of Bengali identity.