Inaugurating the religious festival at the ISKCON temple in Kolkata, she also performed “puja” a ritual of showering rose petals and holy basil leaves on the idol and his two compatriots, Subhadra and Balaram.
Ostensibly, it was an act of a devotee worshipping the deity. In fact, Banerjee has often said, “Religion is an individual choice.”
However, make no mistake that this is also an astute politician’s poll strategy at a time when she faces two important elections – the Panchayat polls next month and the Parliamentary elections next year.
Banerjee’s chief political rival in both cases is the Bharatiya Janata Party, which with its out-and-out Hindutva ideology may not have been able to snatch “secular” Bengal in its quest to widen its base throughout the country since coming to power at the Centre in 2014, but it HAS managed to wrest some ground from right under Banerjee’s feet.
This story is from the June 23, 2023 edition of The Statesman.
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This story is from the June 23, 2023 edition of The Statesman.
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