‘...Abar jitbe Bangla’: TMC hits poll note with new song
Times of India | 11 January 2026
Kolkata: Coinciding with its stand-off with ED on searches at I-PAC premises, Trinamool on Saturday released a three-minute campaign song titled "Jotoi koro hamla, abar jitbe Bangla (Attack as much you can, Bengal will win)", on the lines of the 2021 campaign "Bangla nijer meye-kei chaye (Bengal wants its own daughter)".
Weaving "Bengali asmita (pride)" into its campaign narrative, the music video outlines the party's core campaign planks in the run-up to the 2026 assembly polls.
It highlights attacks on religion and the Bengali language, and repeatedly tries to stress that the political battle is also about "saving Bengal's plurality" both in religion and personal choices. Protests against attacks on Bengali-speaking migrants also feature in the video.
For party workers, a senior neta pointed out, two images have clearly spelt out the narrative.
CM Mamata Banerjee's fighter image — often referred to as akin to a Bengal tigress — has been reinforced by a split second image in which she transforms into a Royal Bengal tiger.
The second is the positioning of black-and-a-white images of PM Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, to spell out who the fight is against.
The campaign theme for the 2026 assembly polls, senior netas said, is a repositioning of the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign theme — "Jonogoner Gorjon, Banglay BJPer Bisorjon (The roar of the people will lead to the BJP's ouster from Bengal."
Trinamool had first used this campaign theme ahead of the 2021 assembly polls, a contest, a party neta said, came with a series of firsts for Banerjee.
"This was the first time she contested from a seat outside Kolkata. It was the first time she had to deal with poll-eve defections at a large scale, including two senior ministers led by Suvendu Adhikari," the neta said.
"It was also the first time she led an entire 50-day election campaign, not on her feet but on a wheelchair. This was also the first time she allowed a poll strategist to recalibrate her political strategy," the neta added.