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Amit Shah to inaugurate Durga puja in Kolkata on Monday
The puja at Santosh Mitra Square, which is among the oldest in the city, has the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya as the theme this year
Union home minister Amit Shah will inaugurate the community Durga puja at Santosh Mitra Square in central Kolkata on Monday afternoon, Bengal leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said.
The five-day festival, which is Bengal’s biggest, will begin on October 20.
The puja at Santosh Mitra Square, which is among the oldest in the city, is organized by BJP leader Sajal Ghosh. The Ram Mandir at Ayodhya is the theme of this puja this year.
Shah’s plane will arrive at the Kolkata airport around 2pm and he will fly to the RCTC ground near Fort William in a chopper. A convoy will take Shah to the venue of the puja. The home minister is scheduled to leave for Delhi around 6pm.
“The union home minister is coming. Our party’s national president J P Nadda is also scheduled to visit the state around October 20 to inaugurate pujas. We want people around the world to know about Bengal’s rich heritage,” Lok Sabha member Locket Chatterjee said on Sunday after state BJP leaders held a meeting prior to Shah’s visit.
The UNESCO added Durga puja in Kolkata to its 2021 list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, giving international recognition to the festival.
HT reported on September 17 that the BJP has urged community Durga puja organisers to project central schemes during the festival saying union ministries may bear the cost of decorations and themes if these are based on social welfare and development projects undertaken by the Narendra Modi government.
BJP leaders have also been told to be associated with as many Durga pujas as possible although the party will not be organising its own puja this year.
In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually joined the commencement of the first Durga puja the state BJP organised at the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) campus in Salt Lake on eastern outskirts of Kolkata. No other prime minister had inaugurated a Durga Puja in Bengal till then. BJP held this puja for three consecutive years following custom.
Around 40,000 community Durga pujas are held in Bengal, with Kolkata and its surrounding areas accounting for around 3,000.
In the run-up to the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s move is being seen as an outreach exercise to counter chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s decision to hike the state’s financial assistance to puja organising community clubs to ₹70,000 each this year. The amount was ₹60,000 in 2022. In 2018, when Banerjee started the assistance scheme, the amount was ₹10,000.
Opposition parties, including BJP, have always criticised Banerjee for this monetary grant saying tax-payer’s money is being spent for political gains.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has focused on Shah’s visit to target BJP.
“During every election, BJP leaders alleged that Mamata Banerjee does not allow people to hold Durga puja. The same people are now coming to Bengal to inaugurate pujas. It seems they have realised that it is Bengal’s heritage that Banerjee is taking forward,” TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said.
