Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she was truly secular, participating in events of all faiths without discrimination, and underscored what she had done for the promotion of Hindu places of worship on a day the Opposition criticised her yet again for alleged appeasement or competitive communalism.
The chief minister, speaking at the foundation stone-laying ceremony for Durga Angan, a cultural complex dedicated to the deity at New Town, said: “Some often accuse me of appeasement, but it is not correct. I am secular in the truest sense of the word.”
“You do not say anything when I visit a Gurdwara... or a temple, but criticise me when I attend an Eid event,” she said, adding that one must learn to love all religions and participate in every festival without malice or motive.
Mamata then went on to boast of not only the Durga Angan but also the Unesco honour for Durga Puja, the Jagannath temple at Digha, the proposed Mahakal temple at Siliguri (the foundation stone-laying for which she would carry out next month, she said).
The chief minister underscored infrastructure initiatives for the temples at Dakshineswar and Kalighat, the Kapil Muni Ashram at Gangasagar, the Iskcon’s facilities, besides measures taken for the conservation of Swami Vivekananda’s ancestral residence, Sister Nivedita’s residence, and that of Sarada Devi, all in north Calcutta.
“We love all castes, creed... our ideology is humanism,” said Mamata.
But CPM state secretary Md Salim begged to differ.
“This is the implication of the so-called poriborton (change she had promised in 2011),” he said.
“The Mamata Banerjee government is using government land for a particular religion, instead of promoting common facilities. Her entire effort supplements the overall design of the RSS to promote religion-centric politics and, with it, Hindutva. What she is doing is building the stepping stones for RSS’s Hindutva project in the state,” he alleged.
“The way she is implementing such Hindutva-driven projects goes to show that the RSS has outsourced its agenda to Mamata. We will counter this Mamata-RSS project by highlighting the need to develop facilities for better education, health, employment, and rural jobs, as well as ensuring the protection of democratic rights and electoral rights. Radicals of both hues — Hindus and Muslims — claim religion is under threat.”
In a virtual echo, the Congress’s Soumya Aich Roy said Mamata was to blame equally, with the BJP, for spreading the venom of communal politics in Bengal.
“She has not only been aiding the cause of the RSS by supposedly trying to keep the BJP out, but also has been actively trying to relegate the real issues that concern the masses, from employment to economic opportunities, education, healthcare, fundamental rights... to the sidelines, simply to win some elections,” said the AICC member.
“The lessons of these crimes would have to be learnt the hard way by her, and that day isn’t far away. She is as culpable in this as the BJP, in Bengal.”
The BJP’s Bengal co-minder and IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, said Mamata was attempting a diversionary tactic.
“After making a spectacle of the (Lionel) Messi event, Mamata Banerjee has now turned her gaze to defiling the sanctity of Maa Durga,” he wrote in a statement on X.
“Her so-called Durga Angan project is steeped in appeasement and fakery, the very hallmarks of her politics. It mocks the faith and beliefs of Bengali Hindus, reducing devotion to a cynical exercise in vote-bank management,” he added.
“Muslims protested the original site in New Town, claiming the land was acquired from Muslims and continues to be “Muslim-origin land.” Mamata Banerjee panicked and abruptly halted the levelling work, despite contracts already having been awarded to TMC-linked contractors under familiar cashback arrangements.”
He claimed Mamata, to protect her “vote bank” and appease a section of minorities, shifted the site of the Durga Angan at the
eleventh hour.
“The government hastily shifted the foundation stone to a new location after objections were raised by families and members of the local minority community, questioning why public funds should be used to construct a Hindu religious structure on land they occupy,” alleged Malviya. “This is governance driven by panic, appeasement overriding planning, and crores of public money wasted for political convenience, at the cost of faith, transparency, and public trust.”