‘Desh ke gaddaron ko, Goli maro salon ko’ — the slogan is back, this time in poll-bound West Bengal. The chant that was first heard in retaliation to anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh in 2019, resurfaced in a new avatar at the most unlikely venue, a ‘peace rally’ held by the ruling Trinamool Congress in Kolkata on Thursday.

It all started with a viral video that showed BJP workers shouting the ‘Desh ke gaddaron ko…’ slogan during a rally at Chandannagar in Hooghly on Wednesday. In response, Mamata Banerjee’s party announced a peace rally  from Tollygunge to Hazra. However, the ‘peace’ was soon forgotten and Trinamool workers re-purposed the slogan and started shouting “Bengal ke gaddaro ko, goli maro saalon ko” (Shoot the traitors of Bengal).

The two parties are engaged in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in the state going to polls in April this year. The BJP is making aggressive inroads in the state ruled by Mamata Banerjee for the past 10 years. The saffron party’s vote share went up from 17% in 2014 Lok Sabha elections to 40% in 2019 and the number of seats grew from 2 to 18.

Following the BJP rally, the West Bengal police on Thursday arrested  BJP Yuva Morcha president Suresh Shaw and two-party workers for shouting the slogan. The issue soon turned into a political slugfest. Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said those who have uttered the slogans were wrong in doing so. The Left-Front also condemned the slogan-shouting with its leader Sujan Chakraborty quoted by local media as saying, “The Trinamool Congress and the BJP share the same DNA.

The ‘Desh ke gaddaron…’ resurfaces every now and then and manages to stir a controversy everytime. In January 2020, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur invited criticism for chanting the slogan at a BJP campaign rally in Delhi.

Thakur shouted the slogan at Rithala while egging on the crowds. A video of Thakur chanting the slogan went viral and was widely condemned. Some Twitter users tagged the Election Commission and demanded action against Thakur.

Thakur said he just asked people what should be done with traitors of the country. “I just wanted people to say what is to be done with traitors of the country. It could have evoked a response like ‘vote them out’ or ‘throw them out’. But it was the people who reacted,” he told Indian Express.

The slogan was earlier heard in Delhi during a march led by BJP leader Kapil Mishra to support the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.