Senior Congress leader and AICC general secretary Ghulam Ahmad Mir, who is also the Bengal minder of his party, on Sunday criticised Union home minister Amit Shah for "politicising Durga Puja to achieve petty political gains".

Mir, who along with state Congress president Subhankar Sarkar inaugurated a couple of Durga Pujas in neighbouring Howrah and visited a few pandals in the city, said at the Congress headquarters in Calcutta: "I would term his (Amit Shah) using a Durga Puja platform to propagate the political agenda of his party as a show of weakness and a low-level act."

Inaugurating a Durga Puja organised by party leader Sajal Ghosh at Santosh Mitra Square on Friday, Union home minister Shah said that he prayed to goddess Durga for a government that would restore the lost glory of “Sonar Bangla (golden Bengal)" after the 2026 Assembly polls.

“I prayed to the goddess that after the 2026 elections, a government should be formed that can build a Sonar Bangla.... We should be able to build the Bengal envisioned by Gurudev (Rabindranath) Tagore,” Shah said while inaugurating the Puja controversially themed on Operation Sindoor.

Mir said that it was unbecoming of a Union minister to use the occasion of Bengal's biggest festival for "petty political gains".

"There is no harm in the Union home minister joining the state to share the sentiments associated with Durga Puja. But it is sheer pettiness to try and provoke political sentiment using the festival," Mir said.

Such desperation showed that the BJP's wrongdoings had been exposed, he said.

"The policies of the BJP have exposed their agenda and they have been managing polls by adding voters or deleting voters," Mir said echoing Rahul Gandhi's "vote chori (vote theft)" charge against Narendra Modi's party.

Mir, along with Sarkar and other state Congress leaders, visited Howrah to inaugurate Puja pandals of Jatiyo Sewa Dal and Swastha Aur Sanskriti Parishad, thereby joining the bandwagon of the Trinamool Congress and the BJP of inaugurating pandals.

Congress leader Suman Roy Chaudhuri said Mir's visit marked the pledge to uphold and respect "Bengali culture and Bengali nationalism" by the party during Durga Puja.

In the evening, the Congress leaders visited the Behala house of Sabarna Roy Chowdhury, one of the oldest zamindar clans originating in Mughal Bengal. Later, they visited a Puja pandal in Calcutta's Metiabruz.

Ridiculing the BJP's "newfound love for Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar and Bengali culture", Mir said: "If they have so much love for Bengal then as Union home minister Amit Shah should answer why Bengalis are being branded as Bangladeshis for speaking in their mother tongue in BJP-ruled states."

Speaking in one's own language is a fundamental right of Indians and the Congress will fight to protect it, Mir said.