Condemn The Gandhi-Like Asura Event, But Various Other Pujas In Bengal Under The TMC’s Administration Also Caused Sentimental Harm: BJP
While the BJP on October 4 categorically denounced the construction of a Mahisasura statue that resembled Mahatma Gandhi at a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata, the saffron party asserted that a number of other pujas in the past in TMC-ruled West Bengal have wounded people’s feelings.
Samik Bhattacharya, the TMC’s state spokesperson, told PTI that the party had not previously denounced such actions as placing a TMC flag in the hands of the goddess at Gurap in the Hooghly district, playing Azaan at a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata, or decorating the path leading to another marquee with shoes.
The Muslim call to prayer, Azaan, was played in a pandal at Beleghata in Kolkata in 2019, and shoes were used to decorate an idol’s route at a different marquee in the Kestopur neighborhood the previous year.
The Beleghata puja organizers claimed that Azaan and the Om chant were played because the pandal’s theme was communal harmony, whereas the Kestopur organizers claimed that the footwear represented the country’s farmers’ movement and was installed away from the marquee where the idol was set up.
Bhattacharya claimed that a number of prior occurrences, including the forcible postponement of Bijoya Dashami because it conflicted with another holiday, show that the TMC had degraded the spiritual significance of Durga Puja to a farce.
Despite the fact that it is a festival of unity, he claimed that West Bengal’s ruling party had flagrantly disregarded the celebration’s spiritual component.
In response to the accusations, the saffron party was charged with always wanting to create disturbances, according to TMC state spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.
He asserted that the BJP would have made a scene if the police had stopped the puja held by the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM), and the saffron party would have reversed course from its stated position of condemning the sacrilegious performance.
On October 2, the father of the nation’s birthday, a Mahisasura statue in a Durga Puja pandal close to Ruby Crossing that resembled Gandhi by having a bald head, wearing a white dhoti, and sporting round glasses sparked an uproar.
However, once a complaint was made, the police gave the order to adjust the idol’s appearance by adding hair to the head and a mustache.
The organizers, ABHM, asserted that the parallels were simply a coincidence.
News Mania Desk
