Mamata Banerjee on Monday launched the Bhasha Andolon from Bolpur, chosen for its association with Rabindranath Tagore and Amartya Sen, by leading a march to begin her campaign.

The rally marked the start of Mamata’s campaign for next year’s Assembly elections with a renewed focus on Bengali pride and claims of victimisation of Bengalis by the BJP. The chief minister had reached Bolpur on Sunday night.

“Our leader Mamata Banerjee will start her Bhasha Andolon at Bolpur by taking blessings of Rabindranath Tagore, who had strongly opposed the 1905 Bengal partition done by the British in a song called Banglar Mati Banglar Jol,” urban development minister Firhad Hakim said.

“She will take out a long march against people brutalising Bengalis in BJP-ruled states,” he added.

Hakim was also present in Birbhum on Sunday at Nanoor Martyrs’ Day in Nanoor to mark the killing of 11 landless peasants who were allegedly hacked to death by CPM-backed goons on July 27, 2000.

Mamata had announced in her July 21 speech in Calcutta that she would launch a statewide Bhasha Andolon after reports of attacks on Bengali-speaking migrants in BJP-ruled states like Odisha, Maharashtra and Delhi and the alleged deportation of some Bengal residents to Bangladesh.

On July 22, she declared her visit to Birbhum and her plan to organise the first protest march.

On Sunday night, the chief minister shared a video alleging that a child and his mother, migrants from Chanchal in Malda, had been assaulted by Delhi police.

“Horrible violence! See how Delhi Police brutally assaulted a child and his mother from a migrant family in Chanchal, Malda! Not even a child is spared BJP’s linguistic terrorism against Bengalis!” Mamata posted on her X handle.

Mamata was scheduled to walk about 3 km and address a rally at Jambuni after paying tribute at a statue of Tagore.

Before the 2021 Assembly elections, the chief minister had walked the same route with her “outsider” narrative against the BJP.