Bengal governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Thursday termed the Kumbh Mela as “Mukti Mela”, his comment coming in the backdrop of chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s assertion that the Mahakumbh had turned into a “Mrityu Kumbh” following deaths of pilgrims in recent stampedes.
Mamata was referring to the deaths of pilgrims at Allahabad on January 29 and on February 15 at the New Delhi railway station.
Targeting the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government and Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Bengal chief minister had said that the authorities had suppressed the actual death toll, a comment that prompted the BJP to call Mamata “anti-Hindu”.
“Kumbh is communion with God. Ordinary people came there voluntarily. Lakhs and lakhs of them came on their own because they wanted to be there. I think it’s a rainbow bridge that connects earth with sky, the man with God, the inner world to the outer world,” the governor told journalists at Raj Bhavan on Thursday.
The governor, however, said that he did not want to comment on what the chief minister had said on Kumbh Mela.
“I don’t want to be a part of any kind of controversy. It’s a democratic setup and a CM is entitled to give his or her analysis of any situation based on a political position they hold. I welcome that as a beauty of democracy,” the governor said.
“I find it (the Mahakumbh) as the excellence of India’s tradition and culture, and as far as political statements are made, I have no comments to make,” he added.
Bose had visited the Kumbh Mela earlier this week and taken a holy dip as well.
However, the BJP is in no mood to lower the volume of its protest against Mamata’s “Mrityu Kumbh” comment.
On Thursday, the leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, met the governor with a delegation of BJP MLAs to lodge the party’s grievance against the chief minister’s comments.
“Nobody will live forever. But after 144 years, when another Mahakumbh is held, people will get to know from the records of the Assembly that a chief minister of Bengal had termed the great affairs a Mrityu Kumbh,” said BJP MLA Adhikari.
