Since October 8, which marked the beginning of the Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been inaugurating around 10 pujas every day.
Her daily routine involves travelling to some part of the city or the other and inaugurating the big-budget pujas there. The inauguration ceremony usually includes a short speech by her, ending with her extending season’s greetings to the people.
Sometime the speech is a prayer for keeping the State safe during natural calamities; sometimes a loaded one, with an appeal to maintain communal harmony. “Your religion can be different from mine but festivals are for everyone,” she often says at these events.
According to sources in the State government, almost 10,000 Durga Puja committees have approached the Chief Minister to inaugurate their pujas. But with the festivities starting early next week, Ms. Banerjee is unlikely to inaugurate more than 100 pujas, which itself is so far the highest number of pujas inaugurated by any political leader in the State.
The Chief Minister has also been displaying her creative side at such events. She has composed lyrics that would be used as theme songs in pujas patronised by key Ministers in her government. On social media, she announced that her new puja music album, Roudrachaya , which has seven songs, has already been released.
At one such inauguration on Friday, Ms. Banerjee, in her speech, jokingly chided her two Ministers, considered to be political rivals.
Theme Aadhaar
At another inauguration on Thursday, she displayed her drawing skills, sketching the face of the goddess. Ms. Banerjee keenly observes the themes of the pandals. During one inauguration, she seemed alarmed when the pandal highlighted the Aadhaar card. The organisers quickly assured her that the theme was not in support of but against Aadhaar.
According to political activists, one reason why the Trinamool leader is walking the extra mile is because this is the last Durga Puja before the 2019 general elections. Her party shares live coverage of these inaugurations on social media.
For political parties in West Bengal, the Durga Puja, which is the largest religious and cultural carnival in the State, is always a ripe occasion to increase their connect with the masses. But the Trinamool government is seeking to extract political mileage from the festival like never before. Not only posters, banners and large cutouts of the Chief Minister and local MLAs crowd the pandals, even logos of Biswa Bangla, the official brand of the government, can be seen on signages adorning them.
These developments, quite naturally, have not gone down well with the Opposition, which has criticised the State government for allocating ₹10,000 to each of the 28,000 pujas held across West Bengal, calling it a misuse of public money. “Money from the State exchequer should not be given out in the name of any party with political intentions,” BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha said.
(With inputs by Soumya Das)
