Voting for BJP will mean ban on fish & meat in Bengal: TMC
Times of India | 25 February 2026
Kolkata: Voting for BJP would mean a ban on fish and meat on the Bengali platter, Trinamool said on Tuesday while criticising BJP over Bihar govt's decision to prohibit sale of meat and fish in open areas near educational institutions, places of worship, and crowded public spaces. TMC alleged that the move was part of an attempt to impose uniform food practices across India and that the "linking of meat-eating to violence" was moral imposition.
Bihar deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sinha said on Monday the govt would clamp down on shops selling meat and fish in the vicinity of religious and educational institutions, claiming that these offended the "purity of sentiments" and promoted "violent tendencies" among children.
Reacting to this, Trinamool spokesperson Arup Chakraborty said: "If BJP gets votes and comes to office in Bengal, the same thing will happen in Bengal. BJP wants to destroy the culture of unity in diversity. It wants to impose one language and one food habit for all. In Bengal, 86% of people eat fish and meat. But BJP doesn't want to recognise and respect that and are forcing their own ideologies on people."
Chakraborty claimed similar patterns were visible in other sectors. "Even in the Vande Bharat trains starting their runs from this state, they tried to impose vegetarian food options. BJP is anti-Bengali. This is a form of cultural aggression. This has to be protested at all levels," he added.
TMC spokesperson Tanmoy Ghosh said in a statement, "Meat- and fish-eaters can be Nobel laureates, scholars, entrepreneurs and rebels who change history with a pen, not violence... Linking food habits to ‘violent tendencies' is not public health policy — it's moral imposition. India's strength lies in pluralism, diversity, and constitutional freedom — not in policing plates. Regulating diet in the name of culture undermines the very idea of India enshrined in our Constitution. And as Bengalis, our first responsibility for our own well-being is to uproot divisive politics from Bengal."
On Feb 17, CM Mamata Banerjee had claimed that BJP would ban fish and meat in Bengal if voted to office, prompting Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya to stress that people in the state "will continue to eat whatever they want to eat".
"If BJP comes to office, it will ban meat and fish in Bengal. I saw Bihar's deputy CM say that fish and meat can't be sold in open markets. Only those who have a licence can sell meat indoors. So, will everyone sell meat and fish in shopping malls? Only a few have the economic strength to do so. Most fish-sellers sell fresh fish on the streets here. This is how they earn their bread. I condemn this politics," Banerjee had said, reacting to Sinha's earlier statement to impose a clamp-down on sale of meat out in open.