Kolkata, July 20 Former state Congress president in West Bengal and former five-time Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, on Sunday, asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing concern over harassment, humiliation, and physical torture being allegedly faced by Bengali-speaking migrant workers in two BJP-ruled states, Odisha and Maharashtra.
Chowdhury’s letter to the Prime Minister comes at a time when the Trinamool Congress and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had already started a full-fledged campaign against the BJP on the same issue.
In his letter, the former state Congress president referred to some purported incident of Bengali-speaking migrant workers being wrongfully targeted due to their linguistic identity after being mistaken for Bangladeshi nationals.
In his letter, Chowdhury also requested the Prime Minister to direct different Union ministries like Home Affairs, Labour & Employment to ensure the protection of the fundamental rights and dignity of these inter-state migrant labourers.
“Given the facts relating to targeted harassment, humiliation, and torture on the poor and innocent Bengali-speaking people working as labourers in Odisha, Maharashtra and other states are being subjected to, I would earnestly request you to intervene for protecting these poor and innocent people from the suffering they are being subjected to,” the letter from Chowdhury to the Prime Minister read.
He also pointed out that the contributions of the Bengali-speaking migrant workers from West Bengal who were working in other states were immense in regard to the revenues of those state governments.
He also said that such treatment of Bengali-speaking migrant workers just because of the similarities in their physical appearances and accent of the language they speak to that of Bangladeshis was not acceptable.
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