Combat Traces Drawn For Meeting Polls, PM Modi To Inaugurate Durga Puja
PM Narendra Modi will inaugurate a digital puja on October 22.
Kolkata:
The Durga Puja is all set once more to turn out to be a political battlefield between Bengal’s ruling party Trinamool Congress and its primary rival within the state, the BJP. Closing 12 months, Mr Amit Shah had inaugurated a Durga Puja in Kolkata’s Salt Lake amid a lot controversy. This time, with meeting elections simply months away, the BJP is deploying High Minister Narendra Modi.
Leader Minister Mamata Banerjee has had the primary mover benefit. She has nearly inaugurated 69 Durga Puja pandals lately in 10 districts. The inauguration spree will proceed over the following two days, remotely and in individual.
On October 22, the High Minister will take part nearly in a Durga Puja being organised via the BJP’s Mahila Morcha and its cultural wing at EZCC, a cultural centre run via Central executive’s Ministry of Tradition.
22 Oct is “Shashti” — the primary day of the Durga Puja and PM Modi will greet the folks of Bengal on a couple of digital platforms as they start 5 days of worship.
The venue might be decked up as a standard Durga pandal with a complete measurement idol of Goddess Durga.
Mr Sambit Patra might recite the “Chandi trail” from the scriptures. However that plan might trade to steer clear of Mr Patra being labelled an interloper. This is a label the Trinamool is increasingly more the use of for BJP leaders, so an area Purohit might begin the worship.
Closing 12 months, the BJP had made a concerted effort to make an access into Durga Puja pandal circuit in Bengal however no longer, in keeping with resources, with stellar luck.
At two main pandals in Kolkata, BJP leaders who have been individuals of Puja establishing committees have been edged out, the BJP claims, via Trinamool’s force techniques.
The Trinamool has all the time denied those fees and House Minister Amit Shah did inaugurate a puja pandal in BJ Block Salt Lake. However the establishing committee and the neighbourhood was once divided over it.
The BJP claims the native Trinamool-run civic frame even threatened to withdraw products and services to the pandal.
So this 12 months, the BJP has been left with out a choice however organise its personal Durga Puja, resources say. State BJP leader Dilip Ghosh insists the party is indirectly getting taken with conserving a Durga puja, but when the cultural wing and the ladies’s wing wish to do one thing they’re welcome.
Mr Ghosh is obviously selecting his battles. The Trinamool has an enormous benefit as during the last 10 years, Mamata Banerjee has made her presence at Puja pandals so robust that at some pandals previously, the Durga idols appeared like the manager minister, dressed like her or even wore the trademark hawai chappals.
The BJP could also be conscious that breaking into the Durga Puja circuit is a problem for the reason that the federal government has prolonged money incentives to Durga Puja committees. There are some 37,000 Puja pandals within the state lately and the Leader Minister has introduced a grant of 50,000 rupees to each and every.
The Durga Puja is such an intrinsic a part of Bengali lifestyles, tradition and psyche, the BJP can’t distance itself from it. It has to compete for area and the high minister himself turns out set to sign up for the fight.
