Mamata Banerjee on Thursday unequivocally condemned the display of a Mahishasura resembling Mahatma Gandhi at a city puja, saying she had been silent on the subject so far to ensure a peaceful festival.
“I feel ashamed even to say this. I have been very sad since the day I found out about this, but I did not say anything earlier,” the chief minister said at a post-Puja event held by the Trinamul Congress in her Assembly constituency of Bhowanipore.
“We did not want the people to find out (about the controversial Mahishasura) during the Puja, because of the sadness it would have brought. A lot of people would have started protesting.”
The offending Mahishasura was put up at a puja organised at the Ruby Crossing by an outfit that calls itself the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha.
That the Mahishasura looked like the Mahatma — with a bald head, spectacles, white moustache and walking stick -— became widely known on October 2, Gandhi’s birth anniversary. The same night its look was changed, the demon now sporting curly hair and a black moustache but no spectacles.
Mamata did not name any organisation but the target of her attack was clear.
“Because we are all about worshipping the mother in our pledge to fight for Ma, Mati, Manush (mother, soil, humans)…. I shall ask just one small question, do you or do you not accept Gandhiji as the leader of the nation?” she said.
“I ask my people - of all communities - those who don’t (consider Gandhi as a national icon), raise your hands…. Tell me, those who keep saying that I do not allow Durga Puja to be held, why then did you, in the name of Mother Durga, in her Puja, turn Gandhiji into an asur?” Mamata asked, speaking in Hindi. “I will not punish you, the people will.”
During the campaign for the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP’s star campaigners had ceaselessly accused Mamata of raising hurdles before the observance of Durga Puja.
“As soon as we found out about this — I thank my police friends, what they did was immediately replace Gandhiji with the original asur, the demon,” Mamata said, referring to the overnight change in the Mahishasura’s appearance.
After the uproar, the BJP, known to blame fringe elements when controversies turn sour, criticised the look of the Mahishasura.
Mamata added: “You are in power today, you show off your (central probe) agency clout. Tomorrow, when you won’t remain, the agencies will go to your homes and twist both your ears. Be ready for that,” she said.
“There will come a day, given the kind of wrongs they have committed… (insulting the legacies of) Gandhiji, Netaji (Subhas Chandra Bose), Rabindranath (Tagore), (Ishwarchandra) Vidyasagar — the people will judge them in the people’s court and teach them an appropriate lesson.”
