Amid the jibes, jabs and verbal onslaught over West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim that the BJP would not allow people of the state to have fish if it comes to power, a touch of humour, albeit sarcastic, has been added to the issue from Manipur.
A viral quip cuts through the noise
The comic touch to the issue has come from BJP leader and Nagaland Minister Temjen Imna Along, who is known for his comic take on issues and viral social media posts.
Along did not even utter a single word in the video posted by him on X on Wednesday (April 22). It was just a one-line caption and a four-second video that led to netizens lauding his sense of humour.
In the video, Along is seen sitting at a table with a plate in front of him full of non-veg food. The table also had a huge array of non-veg dishes, and the Minister looked all set to please his taste buds.
‘Didi’ addressed, message delivered
Then came the caption where along addressed the West Bengal Chief Minister as ‘Didi’ (elder sister), an address used for the TMC supremo also by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, along with a large section of political leaders across the party line.
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Along described himself as a “non-vegetarian by hobby” while pointing out that he was in the BJP.
“Mamata Didi, I am in the BJP and a non-vegetarian by hobby,” the minister wrote in the caption.
Food enters the election arena
His post surfaced just as the first phase of campaigning in West Bengal drew to a close, with the conversation on the ground taking an unusual turn. Food, specifically what people eat and who decides it, has edged its way into the centre of the election rhetoric. Fish, a fixture of the Bengali plate, now finds itself pulled into the churn of political messaging.
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The TMC has accused the BJP of harbouring plans to curb the consumption of fish, meat and eggs if it forms the government, a charge the saffron party has denied.
Banerjee has cast the issue in cultural terms, warning that the BJP poses a threat to Bengal’s way of life, with fish and rice presented as staples that are not up for negotiation. At one rally, she told supporters the BJP would stand in the way of people eating fish, extending that claim to meat and eggs as well.
She returned to the theme at another gathering, pressing the point further. Bengal, she said, runs on fish and rice; if people are told they can have neither fish nor meat nor eggs, what, she asked, are they expected to eat?
BJP’s visual rebuttal
Across the aisle, BJP leaders have tried to blunt that line of attack in a more visual way. Candidates have been seen campaigning with fish in hand and sitting down to meals that include meat, an effort to counter the perception of the party as strictly vegetarian.
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That perception has not emerged in a vacuum. Periodic curbs on meat sales in BJP-ruled states such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, along with actions tied to cow protection, have fed into it over time.
Fish-rice as political messaging
On Tuesday, BJP MP Anurag Thakur joined party workers in Kolkata for a meal of ‘maach bhaat’, (fish curry with rice), turning the menu itself into a statement.
He said the spread on the table spoke for itself. People in BJP-ruled states eat what they choose, he argued, pointing to the party and its allies governing across multiple states without restrictions on food, speech or worship. The claims from Banerjee, he added, were aimed at stirring anxiety and confusion.
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