As per latest reports, BJP sources are said to have stated that the party president, Amit Shah is likely to inaugurate Durga Puja festivities this year in West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s locality. Sanghasree Durga Puja Committee has been organising Durga Puja for the last 73 years and has invited Amit Shah to inaugurate the festivities.
For the last few years, the Durga Puja festivities were inaugurated by Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee. However, West Bengal has seen a major change on its political landscape in the recent past. Mamata Banerjee no longer enjoys unchallenged political supremacy in the state and the BJP now enjoys massive presence. In the Lok Sabha polls held this year, the BJP won 18 seats while the TMC managed to win 22. With such a narrow difference and the BJP under party president Amit Shah, making huge inroads, TMC has clearly lost the position that it enjoyed not very long ago.
Earlier, the Sanghasree Durga Puja Committee was headed by Mamata Banerjee’s brother Kartik Banerjee. However, her brother is no longer at the helm of affairs. The Committee is now headed by BJP State Unit Secretary Sayantan Basu. A committee functionary, however, said that it had nothing to do with politics. Souradeep Dutta, assistant general secretary of the club said, “It has nothing to do with politics. Mr Sayantan Basu is our president. He has said he will talk to Amit Shah’s office to have a date fixed for inaugurating the Durga Puja this time.”
BJP State Unit Secretary, Sayantan Basu said that the club which is associated with the Sanghaseee Durga Puja Committee, had requested the BJP president to inaugurate the festivities. Durga Puja is an inseperable part of West Bengal’s culture. It is the biggest festival in the state and that Amit Shah has usurped the role of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the festivities this year, speaks volumes of how the popular the BJP has gotten among the people of West Bengal.
Durga Puja has been a matter of political controversy in the recent years. With the Mamata Banerjee government issuing an arbitrary notification in 2017 curtailing Durga idol immersion on particular days when its date clashed with Muharram, observed by Muslims as a day of mourning. The West Bengal Mamata Banerjee government had come under fire for issuing such a notification based on communal lines and clearly undermining the freedom to celebrate Durga Puja. However, the government maintained that it was issued in order to avoid a law and order situation. These actions by the Mamata Banerjee government have been vehemntly opposed by Amit Shah and the BJP. Later, the Calcutta High Court had slammed the Mamata Banerjee government for issuing such a notification. The High Court had also struck down the immersion ban imposed in 2016 by the Mamata Banerjee led government. It is clear that Durga Puja has become a symbol of how the TMC government denied fundamental rights to the Hindu community under the garb of maintaining law and order.
Amit Shah and the BJP on the other hand ensured that the blatant minority appeasement done by Mamata Banerjee government is called out from every stage during the Lok Sabha election campaign. Mamata Banerjee even had several youths arrested for chanting “Jai Shri Ram” as her convoy passed by. She exhibited a clear irritation with the slogan by personally admonishing the people had the West Bengal Chief Minister provoked by the chant. In a retort to this peculiar anti-Hindu behaviour by Mamata Banerjee, Amit Shah strengthened BJP’s campaign in West Bengal further and many Hindus alienated by the TMC administration poured in massive support for the BJP. As Amit Shah may inaugurate the Durga Puja festivities in West Bengal after BJP’s groundbreaking performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee should be gravely worried about her political bastion.