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Bengal BJP asks workers not to carry party flags at Gita chanting on Dec 24

Dec 14, 2023 07:20 PM IST

Three Hindu organisations have invited the Prime Minister, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Governor C V Ananda Bose and many eminent citizens to the event at Brigade Parade Grounds

The Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Thursday that it has asked its workers not to carry party flags at the mass chanting of Bhagavad Gita in Kolkata on December 24 – where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited by the organisers – but said it cannot stop people from raising slogans.

 (Representative Photo)
(Representative Photo)

Three Hindu organisations have invited the Prime Minister, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Governor C V Ananda Bose and many eminent citizens to the event at Brigade Parade Grounds.

The organisers have claimed that 100,000 people will chant five of the 18 chapters from the Bhagavad Gita.

“It is neither a political event nor is the BJP organising it. Why should our workers carry party flags? They will attend as citizens. But how can we stop people from raising the Jai Sri Ram slogan or shouting Modi’s name?” Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.

Amid speculations that BJP plans to use the event to reach out to Bengal’s Hindu voters before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Sukanta Majumdar, the party’s state president, accompanied the organisers to Delhi last month to invite the Prime Minister.

Banerjee is scheduled to meet the PM in Delhi on December 20, four days before the event, to demand the disbursement of suspended Central funds.

Although the chief minister has not said yet whether she will attend the mass chanting, many are recalling the 2021 incident in which PM Modi’s bid to observe freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary on January 23 in Kolkata ran into a debate after Jai Sri Ram slogans were raised by the BJP workers during her speech peeved the chief minister.

Banerjee’s statement, that the slogan was raised at the government event at Victoria Memorial Hall grounds only to “insult” her, snowballed into a storm on social media and public life.

Although some state BJP leaders initially said the sloganeering was “uncalled for,” they altered their stand when the BJP leaders from other states accused CM Banerjee of politicising the issue and being insensitive towards Hindus.

On Thursday, Bhattacharya steered clear of the 2021 controversy saying Jai Sri Ram has almost become a national slogan now.

“Jai Sri Ram is not a political slogan. But if people identify it with BJP then we must say we are fortunate because the words symbolise prosperity and glory. How can we stop our workers from raising it on December 24? They also shout the PM’s name, hailing him,” he said.

Reacting to the developments, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen said, “We may witness a repetition of the 2021 incident. Those who have no understanding of Bengal’s culture will continue to insult its people and the chief minister. If BJP sees Jai Sri Ram as a national slogan, then it is insulting the national anthem.”

The mass chanting, the first of its kind to be held in Bengal, is being organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad, Sanatan Sanskriti Sanshad and Motilal Bharat Tirtha Seba Mission Ashram.

“All Indians are welcome to attend. This has nothing to do with politics,” Swami Pradiptananda Maharaj, president of the organising committee, said at a press conference on Thursday.

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