New Delhi: It’s never just a fish in Bengal. This week, that truism has leapt from cultural cliche to political headlines, turning fish into the most unlikely, yet potent, symbol in the run-up to the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. From BJP leaders conspicuously brandishing katla fish to Trinamool Congress sharpening its attacks on “outsider” BJP, the Bengali plate has become a full-blown electoral battleground.
Call it optics, signalling, or survival politics — the BJP’s sudden embrace of fish ahead of the polls this month is not accidental. The Trinamool’s sustained campaign to paint the party as culturally alien to Bengal served as bait. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly warned that a BJP regime could impose dietary restrictions on the maach-bhaater Bangali, claims the BJP has been scrambling to counter. The party has even, bizarrely, reassured the voters that their CM face will be non-vegetarian.
Political messaging has bled seamlessly into internet culture. The stereotype of the fish-loving Bengali has now become a contested political site and both the BJP and TMC know it. And the voters do too.
In a food-obsessed state, parties are playing at where it matters, diverting public attention from stalled projects, unemployment, and relentless syndicate corruption. This BJP vs TMC’s conspicuous on-ground food outreach battle makes Bengal’s fish wars ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
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Fish as outreach
In Bengal, fish is not just the holy grail of food. It is history, custom, class marker, and cultural shorthand. From festivals to funerals, literature to cinema, fish sits at the heart of what it means to be Bengali. The Trinamool has precisely tapped into that anxiety: that the BJP represents a cultural imposition and not a political alternative.
At a campaign rally Sunday, Mamata Banerjee claimed that the BJP would stop fish, meat and even egg consumption in the state if voted to power.
“They will not let you eat fish. You cannot have meat, you cannot have eggs, you cannot speak in Bengali. If you do, they will call you Bangladeshi,” Banerjee thundered in Purulia.
BJP leader and Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar had to issue a statement.
“Whoever becomes the CM from BJP is going to be someone who eats non-vegetarian food. So if the chief minister himself is a non-vegetarian, how can they impose a ban on it?” he said.
These TMC claims are not new. Since the BJP made inroads in Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections winning 18 of 42 seats, TMC has tried hard to alienate the party. To counter the narrative, the party’s Bengal unit has been attempting a careful recalibration: foregrounding local faces, softening its image, and now, holding up fish as proof of cultural alignment.
Last year, it made Soumik Bhattacharya, a self-proclaimed meat-lover, its state party President. He had then assured that no one can stop “Bengalis and Biharis from relishing mutton.”
BJP upped its game as elections drew close. Campaign rallies now feature fish prominently and poll promises are now only on non-veg food.
Last week, Bidhannagar candidate Sharadwat Mukherjee went around campaigning with a fish in his hand. “Lies are being peddled. We will eat fish, mutton, chicken according to our choice,” he said.
Candidates like Jitendra Nath went as far as to hold a fish rally Thursday, carrying buckets of fish and even a large one, upholding it – quite literally – as “Bengal’s culture”.
The Trinamool doubled down and rejected BJP’s fish outreach as drama. The party even taunted Home Minister Amit Shah in an X post Thursday, calling him a “tourist” coming to campaign in the state and urging him – a Gujarati vegetarian – to try non-veg delicacies such as ilish bhapa and bhetki paturi.
.@AmitShah has announced his decision to spend 15 days in Bengal. Good. Bengal welcomes tourists with open arms. Stay for as long as you like. And do not miss out on some of our finest delicacies.
We highly recommend:
👉 Muri Ghonto
👉 Pabda Macher Jhal
👉 Ilish Bhapa
👉 Chingri… pic.twitter.com/44Nz2KSyQF
— All India Trinamool Congress (@AITCofficial) April 2, 2026
Getting the goat
This is not a new playbook. During the 2021 Bengal election, TMC’s viral campaign track ‘Khela Hobe’ (which roughly translates to ‘let the game begin’) weaponised the “outsider” narrative with biting precision. The word “borgi”— evoking Maratha mercenaries from Bengal’s historical past — was repurposed to describe BJP’s central leadership and campaign machinery.
The message landed and lingered so much that the BJP brass sat up and took notice. At a rally in Purulia, PM Modi directly took on ‘Khela Hobe’, thundering: “While Didi says ‘Khela hobe’, BJP says ‘Vikas Hobey’.”
Five years later, the battlefield looks strikingly similar but more meme-ready. The churn on social media this week is impossible to miss.
Content creators are staging skits around “fish diplomacy,” stand-up comics are building entire sets on BJP’s sudden culinary enthusiasm, and Instagram Reels recycle campaign visuals into punchlines within hours.
“If this will make politicians distribute biryani in political campaigns, at least people will get some food,” comedian Abijit Ganguly joked in an Instagram Reel Wednesday. “It’s true, what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow.”
Even the ‘Khela Hobe’ singer has a new song on SIR where he reasserts that Bengalis will continue to eat mutton and BJP leaders will then be “goats”.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)