Union home minister Amit Shah’s visit to Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s ancestral home in Bhowanipore, a groundbreaking ceremony for a statue of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder at Eco Park, and programmes across schools and colleges will mark a dramatic expansion of celebrations for Mookerjee’s 125th birth anniversary on Monday.

BJP leaders said the observance has come a long way from the subdued commemorations of earlier years, which were largely confined to garlanding his portrait.

Monday’s events will include recitals and lectures, with hundreds expected to attend. BJP leaders said Mookerjee’s birth anniversary has never before been marked on such a scale, even in his birthplace, Calcutta.

Shah calling

Amit Shah will fly to Calcutta on Monday for a half-day visit dedicated entirely to the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Mookerjee, BJP sources said.

The BJP had long lamented its inability to win power in Bengal, the home state of the founder of its political predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Party leaders say their emphatic victory in the April Assembly elections has brought an end to that sense of regret.

According to the itinerary shared by the BJP’s Bengal unit, Shah will travel to Eco Park directly from the airport.

“A 125-ft statue of Mookerjee will be erected at Eco Park. Amit Shah ji will attend the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday,” said Piyush Kanodia, BJP MLA from Rajarhat-New Town.

Shah will then visit 77, Asutosh Mukherjee Road, Mookerjee’s ancestral home. “The programme there will be brief. Shah will pay floral tributes to a bust of Mookerjee and leave,” a BJP leader said.

The Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan near Science City will be his last and longest stop on this brief tour of Calcutta. Shah is likely to spend over an hour before he leaves for Delhi.

School decked out

Mitra Institution, Bhowanipore, where Mookerjee passed his matriculation examination in 1917, has been decked up for the occasion. The school has lined up recitals and talks on its distinguished former student.

The institution still preserves resolution books bearing the signatures of Syama Prasad Mookerjee and his father, Ashutosh Mookerjee, both of whom served as presidents of its managing committee.

Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari and several members of his cabinet are scheduled to attend the celebrations, state government officials said.

The school building has been given a fresh coat of paint, and the uneven pavement outside has also been repaired.

Ancestral home

The Hooghly district administration will also mark Mookerjee’s 125th birth anniversary at Jirat, where his grandfather built the family’s ancestral home. The state government has purchased the property from Mookerjee’s descendants.

“We purchased the 0.30-decimal plot around 10 days ago,” a Hooghly district administration official said.

Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari had earlier announced that the state would develop the site into a memorial dedicated to Mookerjee.

“Your government, the nationalist government, has decided to buy Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s ancestral home in Jirat and develop it into a memorial. We will build a library there,” Suvendu said in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Tarakeswar in Hooghly last month.

The state government has directed all districts, subdivisions, blocks and municipalities to organise programmes to mark Mookerjee’s birth anniversary, an official said.

Schools and colleges

The BJP government in Bengal has directed all government and aided colleges to observe Mookerjee’s birth anniversary on July 6 “in a befitting manner” with the “active participation” of teachers and non-teaching staff.

Several private schools have also declared a holiday on Monday to mark Mookerjee’s 125th birth anniversary. Among them are St. Xavier’s Collegiate School, The Heritage School, Mahadevi Birla World Academy, The Newtown School and Ramamohan Mission High School.

“We have decided to remain closed on Monday,” said Seema Sapru, principal of The Heritage School.