Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday discriminated between saccha gerua (true saffron) and jhhuta gerua (fake saffron) as she took a dig at the BJP-RSS combine, the attack was a clear indication that she was preparing for next year’s Lok Sabha polls.
“One doesn’t become a sadhu by just sporting gerua. The mind has to become gerua (referring to sacrifices that a saffron clad sadhu has to make). The BJP is doing all this. There are ones who want to become a minister, an MLA, eat, travel and also flaunt the saffron robes. There are sachha gerua (true saffron) and jhuta gerua (fake saffron),” Mamata said while inaugurating a skywalk for pilgrims at Dakshineswar on Monday.
The comments from Mamata assumes significance in the backdrop of the two-day meeting of sadhus that ended in New Delhi on Sunday with a call for a law or ordinance to clear the decks for a Ram temple in Ayodhya and an appeal to voters to re-elect the Narendra Modi government next summer.
The chief minister didn’t refer to the Delhi congregation even once, but by invoking true saffron she meant that the robed persons should not take interest in the politics of the country. In her speech, she also tried to highlight that the BJP-RSS brand of Hindutva did not reflect the true tents of the religion.
“The true bearers of the gerua robe are the ones at the Ramakrishna Mission…Swami Suvirananda, Bharat Sevasharm Sangha, the ones who are at ashrams in the Himalayas,” she explained addressing a gathering a day ahead of the Kali Puja.
Among those present on the dais with her was Swami Suvirananda, the general secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna
Mission besides her cabinet colleagues and MPs and MLAs.
On Tuesday, lakhs of devotees are expected to troop down to Dakshineswar to witness the puja of Goddess Kali that stands in the temple.
Sri Ramakrishna had worshipped the deity at the temple here in the form of Bhabatarani.