From rallies to reels: political catchphrases turn dance anthems in Kolkata

A video uploaded by IndicSociety on X showed club-goers in Kolkata dancing to the song ‘Hamba Hamba’ inside Roots, a nightclub in the city. ‘Hamba Hamba’ an imitation of the bellowing of cows, taken from Mamata Banerjee’s speech in Murshidabad delivered ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections, has now been remixed into a techno number that has got the city dancing, especially after the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) loss in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections 2026. Looks like Calcutta night clubs have turned @MamataOfficial's political jeering into dance floor remixes 😂 Nothing screams peak rebellion more than trolling Didi through club beats Loud, unapologetic & celebrating like Didi's farewell celebrations pic.twitter.com/D0v3trzjFK — Adit (@IndicSociety) May 12, 2026 The song was uploaded in January 2024 on Apple Music, JioSaavn and Spotify by Bajania Ghar, a music production house whose Instagram bio describes it as a “music production house dedicated to discovering and uplifting new, raw singing and songwriting talent from across the country”. Over the past few years, Bengal’s political soundscape has given rise to a strange but sticky new genre: political techno remixes built on repetitive choruses, meme-friendly punchlines and danceable beats, often remixed by local DJs and amplified through reels and short-form videos. The trend arguably began in 2021 with Khela Hobe (let the games begin), the Trinamool Congress anthem written by their youth leader Debangshu Bhattacharya and remixed by DJ Bulbul. Originally adapted from a slogan popularised by Bangladeshi politician Shamim Osman, the phrase quickly escaped politics and entered everyday speech. Since then, songs like ‘Hamba Hamba’, ‘Mach Chor’ (fish thief) and ‘File Chor’ (file thief)have followed a similar template, using catchy hooks and direct political mockery to travel rapidly across social media. Arkaprabha Mahata, a software development engineer, has been an avid listener and appreciator of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). A fan of acid and minimal techno popularised by Belgian DJ Charlotte de Witte, Arkaprabha says he has been enjoying the ‘Hamba Hamba’ song for a while now and explains the reason why. He says, “So basically the words ‘hamba hamba rumba rumba kamba kamba’ — all of these words are in between two beats. Now, in any techno track, every beat usually has a backing melody or rhythm behind it, and in this particular song these words, with their rhyming scheme, fit perfectly into that structure and work very well together.” The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), following and preceding its landslide victory in Bengal on May 4, has released tracks like ‘Mach Chor’ and ‘File Chor’, aimed at certain former ministers and members of the TMC. Indrayudh Bose, an MBA graduate from Trinity College Dublin, says that the moment he heard the BJP’s latest song, ‘Thanda Thanda Cool Cool Mayer Bhoge Trinamool’ (calm and cool Trinamool is on offer to the goddess), on Spotify, he shared it with his friends. Indrayudh explains that many people dancing to or enjoying these songs do not necessarily subscribe to the political ideology of the party behind them. “I think it boils down to one really catchy tune and the lyrics are so funny. Like ‘Khela Hobe’ (the game is on), which came out in 2021, became a chant and we brought it up in every conversation. Even when I was discussing the Derby, East Bengal versus Mohun Bagan, people were saying ‘khela hobe’. So that phrase kind of caught on not necessarily because people liked Mamata or TMC. And the same thing in 2026, BJP also realised that a way to get into people’s heads who may not subscribe to the ideology — especially the one which I shared to my friends, ‘thanda thanda cool cool mayer bhoge Trinamool’ — objectively has no head or feet. It is just something really funny and groovy which caught my attention,” says Indrayudh. Giving these songs a boost and an afterlife is social media. Sohan Saha, a cyber security student specialising in ethical hacking, uploaded a video of himself and a friend dancing to the BJP’s song ‘Mach Chor’ (fish thief) on Instagram on May 5. The song is targeted at Saokat Molla, a former TMC MLA. As of May 21, 2026, the video has received 1.4 million views, 131,000 likes, 1,003 comments, 3,247 reposts and 77,800 shares so far. Sohan first heard the song on a friend’s mobile phone a week before the 2026 Bengal elections. “It didn’t hit me at first. After listening to it two or three times on Instagram reels, the repetitive hook got stuck in my head and I felt that it had something in it, it had a ‘vibe’. After that I started hearing the song in buses, autos, totos (three-wheeled public transport) and roadside stalls. Even if we take out the party angle, the lyrics were so engaging and funny it was relatable. The catchy tune makes people move and dance. Nowadays in the techno songs made in Bollywood, they have a repetitive hook as well and a catchy beat. These