The Trinamul Congress on Tuesday launched a pan-Bengal poster overdrive to counter the BJP's overt polarisation campaign to consolidate Hindu voters ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

Since last week, BJP workers in districts like Bankura and Hooghly have started a poster campaign with the slogan: "Hindu Hindu bhai bhai, 26 e ebar BJP chai" (Hindus are brothers; we want BJP in power in 2026). The campaign urges Hindus to unite against the Trinamul Congress and vote for the BJP in next year’s Assembly polls.

In response to the BJP's aggressive campaign, the TMC has mobilised its IT cell to launch a counter-campaign.

Starting from Calcutta, the TMC put up posters across various districts that mimicked the BJP’s slogan while raising questions about whether the ‘Hindu Hindu bhai bhai’ narrative actually benefited the Hindu community.

One poster reads: "Hindu Hindu bhai bhai, kintu Bangali purnamantri nai (Hindus are brothers, but there is no Bengali cabinet minister)."

The poster rubs in the fact that Bengal does not have a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi government. Other posters questioned why there were no reductions in LPG prices despite the BJP's view that Hindus are brothers.

A TMC source said that realising the BJP’s desperation to push its Hindutva narrative to polarise voters before next year's Assembly polls, Mamata Banerjee has begun deploying a counter strategy. The source added that while stressing her party’s liberal and secular credentials, Mamata wanted to show her government was also pro-Hindu. This has become more important for the TMC as the BJP, particularly Suvendu Adhikari, continues to term Mamata Banerjee's government as "anti-Hindu".

The TMC’s move to stress its pro-Hindu credentials by repeatedly referring to the government building a Jagannath temple in Digha or Mamata stating in the Assembly that she was a Brahmin was not something the party or the chief minister has usually done since coming to power in 2011.

"The TMC has largely avoided such tactics," a Trinamool insider said. He added many within Bengal's ruling party believed this approach might inadvertently strengthen the saffron ecosystem.

Political observers in Bengal say the TMC’s poster battle against the BJP in a way signals concern among the leadership about the BJP’s polarisation strategy, which was successful in wooing Hindu voters in Maharashtra and Delhi in recent elections.

“TMC is aware that the BJP lacks a strong grassroots organisation or a dedicated vote bank from beneficiaries of direct money transfer schemes. However, the BJP’s ‘Hindus are in danger’ narrative proved effective in Maharashtra and Delhi. This success is playing on the TMC's mind. The TMC posters have been planned to reach out to Hindu voters and prevent the BJP from consolidating their votes,” said political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty.

“Bengal voters differ significantly from those in Delhi or Maharashtra. Bengal has a larger number of liberal Hindu voters, which is likely to benefit Mamata Banerjee. But on the other hand, pitching a narrative of Hindu oppression is easier for the BJP in Bengal, since the chief minister openly woos minority voters,” Chakraborty added.

A TMC source stated that while the campaign has been launched statewide, the party is focusing more on districts where they lost in the previous polls.

“In north Bengal, the campaign is particularly intense in Malda and North Dinajpur, where the TMC lost all four Lok Sabha seats last year. Interestingly, both districts have minority populations of around 50 per cent. It indicates the TMC is attempting to break the BJP’s dominance in Hindu vote banks in those areas,” said a senior TMC leader.

BJP leaders claimed that the TMC's so-called Muslim appeasement policies created this political climate.

“Hindus in Bengal raised the 'Hindu Hindu bhai bhai' slogan in response to TMC leaders’ divisive remarks. The TMC calls itself pro-Hindu but will go ahead and bow to fundamentalist forces (of a particular community),” said BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya.

TMC leaders argued that their campaign aimed to expose the BJP’s divisive politics and highlight how the Modi government deprived citizens of development and fundamental rights while using the Hindutva narrative.

“We always advocate the politics of development. Our campaign aims to counter the BJP’s divisive tactics by reminding people how the Centre has ignored the common people's welfare,” said TMC leader Kunal Ghosh.