Intoning “Didi, O Didi” had flopped in 2021. On Monday, “da” failed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament.

Modi had initiated the Lok Sabha debate to mark 150 years of Vande Mataram by referring to the national song’s composer as “Bankim-da”, in the likely belief that it would endear him to Bengalis.

He seemed taken aback when Trinamool members accused him of trivialising Bengal’s intellectual and cultural tradition.

Modi had already used the “da” suffix a couple of times when Sougata Roy objected: “You are saying Bankim-da? You should say Bankim Babu.”

The Prime Minister promptly acknowledged the mistake and thanked the Trinamool member.

“I will say ‘Bankim Babu’. Thank you, I respect your sentiments,” he said and from then on referred to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as “Bankim Babu”.

Trying to make light of the gaffe, Modi told Roy in a jocular vein: “I can call you ‘Dada’, right? Or would you object to that too?”

In his nearly hour-long speech, Modi also slipped up while referring to two Bengali freedom fighters — “Master-da” Surya Sen and Pulin Bihari Das — but these bloopers passed unnoticed.

This time, ironically, he dropped “da” from “Master-da” and referred to Das as “Pulin Vikas Das”.

Trinamool, which has since the 2021 elections been castigating BJP leaders over their repeated howlers relating to Bengal’s icons, however, singled out “Bankim-da”.

“It is a textbook fish-out-of-water moment for @BJP4India,” the opening line of the party’s post on X said.

It went on to mock the BJP for the way its attempts to “dishonestly appropriate Bengal’s cultural icons” only helped expose how “grotesquely alien they are to Bengal’s cultural consciousness, history, and vocabulary”.

It said: “@narendramodi, insultingly patronising as always, refers to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as ‘Bankim da’. No, Modi ji, Bengal does not casually slap the suffix ‘da’ onto figures it venerates. Only a cultural illiterate would think that sounds respectful.”

The state BJP posted a counter tweet: “Bengalis refer to Freedom Fighter Surya Sen as Master ‘Da’. Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray is referred to as Manik ‘Da’.”

“Manik-da”, however, would generally be used only by people close to Ray. “Master-da” conveys respect in a way mere “Master” — the term the Prime Minister used for Sen — might not.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee — the target of the “Didi, O Didi” taunt during the 2021 Bengal election campaign that spectacularly backfired on the Prime Minister — attacked the BJP over its Vande Mataram blitz.

Speaking to reporters before the “Bankim-da” controversy had gained traction, she said: “Let him (Modi) do whatever he wants. We have no problem. But regarding Vande Mataram, I want to say that it originates from Bengal, just like our national anthem.”

She added: “I also heard yesterday that some individuals in the BJP do not like Netaji. So they do not like Netaji, Gandhiji or Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Who exactly do they like?”

Participating in the Lok Sabha discussion, Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar accused the Prime Minister of trivialising Bengal’s cultural giants.

Dastidar told the House she had received several phone calls and messages from people in Bengal who had been deeply hurt by Modi’s remarks.

“The way the honourable Prime Minister in his speech referred to Rishi Bankim Chattopadhyay as ‘Bankim-da’, it seemed as though he was addressing a casual acquaintance at a roadside tea stall. Bengal is not taking this well,” she said.

Union culture minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat stirred further controversy when, participating in the debate, he referred to “Bankim Das Chatterjee”.

“Vande Mataram jab mahan kavi Bankim Das Chatterjee ne likha tha (When the great poet Bankim Das Chatterjee wrote Vande Mataram)…,” he said in the House, drawing loud protests from Trinamool benches.

After uttering the mistake multiple times, Shekhawat corrected himself by dropping “Das” and sticking to “Bankim Chatterjee”.

His breezy dismissal of the Trinamool members’ protests, however, angered Bengal’s ruling party.

“On the very same day @narendramodi fumbled the name of a revered Bengali luminary, his Union Minister raced to prove that ignorance in that party isn’t asolitary vice, it’s a full-blown tradition,” Trinamool saidon X.

“And when challenged not by fringe critics, but by elected opposition MPs demanding respect, he snarled back with the hauteur of a feudal Zamindar, barking orders to sit down, as though Parliament were his private manor.”

The state BJP tried to fight back by accusing Mamata of “repeatedly” insulting “Bengal’s real icons”.

It cited Mamata’s alleged comments against some monks as a “direct attackon Swami Vivekananda’s legacy”.

Somewhat mystifyingly, it added that in March this year, Mamata “Used Ramakrishna & Vivekananda as props to contrast BJP’s ‘ganda dharm’ (dirty religion) at an Eid event — cheap minority appeasement that belittled the very icons she claims to revere.”