A virtual race has begun between the leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) over inauguration of community. The BJP is making its presence felt in Bengal’s biggest annual festival for the first time.
Starting with Union home minister and BJP national president Amit Shah inaugurating a community Durga Puja at BJ Block in Kolkata’s satellite township of Salt Lake on Tuesday, the party’s MPs and MLAs and national and state-level leaders will inaugurate about 500 community Pujas across the state – a number that is over five times more than the pujas inaugurated by BJP leaders last time.
“There were many more community pujas organisers who wanted our leaders and union ministers to inaugurate their pujas but they could not come forward for the fear of TMC,” said Tushar Kanti Ghosh, BJP’s state executive member and in-charge of club relations.
TMC, however, mocked BJP’s claims. “They are counting in dozens and hundreds. Our leaders’ association with the Durga pujas goes into thousands. We have lost count of how many pujas our leaders inaugurate every year,” senior TMC leader and food minister Jyoti Priya Mallick said.
There are about community 28,000 Durga pujas in the state. Last year, Mamata Banerjee announced a bonanza for all community pujas with Rs 10,000 grant to each organising club. This time, she raised the amount to Rs 25,000 per club.
The state government also gives the most prestigious award for the best tableau during the immersion carnival.
Bengal’s biggest festivities have traditionally remained the domain of the ruling Trinamool Congress. While Mamata Banerjee herself goes on an inauguration spree even before Mahalaya – the recognized beginning of the Devipaksha – many TMC leaders are the chief patrons of several community Durga pujas that are among the star-attractions for pandal hoppers.
Star community pujas such as Ekdalia Evergreen (minister Subrata Mukehrjee), Suruchi Sangha (minister Aroop Biswas), Chetla Agrani (Firhad Hakim), Naktala Udayan Sangha (minister Partha Chatterjee), Hindustan Club (minister Chandrima Bhattacharya), Shreebhumi Sporting (minister Sujit Bose), Tridhara Sammilani (councilor Debasish Kumar) have become signature exercises of the ruling party leaders. Each of them attracts lakhs of pandal hoppers during the five-day puja.
“We have not got associated with pujas with a political mandate to capture clubs. We do not indulge in such low-level politics. We have been puja organisers for decades,” said TMC heavyweight and panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee.
According to political analyst Amal Mukhopadhyay, former principal of Presidency College, the increase in the number of pujas to be inaugurated by BJP leaders comes as a result of the party winning 18 Lok Sabha seats.
“MPs are usually invited to inaugurate pujas. It is likely that most of the 500-odd pujas that BJP leaders are set to inaugurate involves the MPs,” Mukhopadhyay said.
The Trinamool’s drive for taking hold of community puja committees hit a hurdle when Sanghashri puja in Kalighat area – where the chief minister lives – announced BJP state unit, general secretary Sayantan Basu as the president of the puja organising committee and revealed their plan of getting the puja inaugurated by Shah.
Later, allegedly under pressure from TMC, Basu was removed from the position of president. BJP state unit thereafter decided to keep to them the names of the puja committees that would show interest in getting their pujas inaugurated by BJP leaders.
Even though the name of BJ Block community pujas, to be inaugurated by Shah, was announced barely a week before the beginning of the festivities, trouble broke out within the puja committee, with a section of members accusing the honorary president of the puja committee, Umashankar Ghosh Dastidar, a BJP leader, of keeping everybody in dark about the invitation to Shah.
“Our president invited him on his own. If home minister Amit Shah comes here, we have no objection. But if any BJP leader comes, we have an objection. We just do not want to politicise the pujas here,” said Anindya Singha Roy, secretary, BJ block puja committee.
Puja inauguration, however, is not the only route BJP is pursuing to increase the association with Durga puja. New Delhi-based BJP think-tank Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, which is headed by BJP’s national policy research wing member Anirban Ganguly, has launched Syama Prasad Durgotsab Samman from this year.
The award will be given in collaboration with a recently launched Kolkata-based pro-BJP social organisation, Bongiyo Matribhume. “We have received applications from 130 puja committees in Kolkata, Dumdum and Salt Lake. Awards will be given in eight categories and announced on October 3,” said Abhijit Basak an office bearer of Bongiyo Matribhume.
The tagline for the contest is “Ei Okalbodhoney Podmo Chokhe, Durga Money”, which means, “In this puja, lotus is in the eyes and Durga in the mind’. Apart from being BJP’s electoral symbol, the lotus is also integral to Durga puja.
BJP Mahila Morcha has also launched a campaign with the tagline, “Padma Chhara Durga Puja Hoy Naki!” (Durga puja is incomplete without the lotus).
