Basanta Utsav, the time-honoured spring festival in the varsity town of Santiniketan that coincides with Holi, was celebrated here on Sunday at two different locations even as varsity officials made no official comment on its own celebration.

Traditionally, Visva-Bharati hosts a carnival in celebration of the event that is visited by tens of thousands of tourists. However, it was cancelled owing to Covid-19 in 2020 and went officially unobserved this year following a spate of controversial on-campus events involving the vice-chancellor and purported on-campus politics.

Still, two Trinamul Congress-backed entities — a Durga Puja committee in Jamboni, and the Bolpur traders’ committee at the Kabiguru handicrafts market — organised their own celebrations.

“Visva-Bharati is slowly trying to phase out Santiniketan’s culture. We will never allow that and did not want to feel the absence of celebration,” said Jamboni organiser Debabrata Mondal. In the evening, Tagore’s dance drama Chitrangadawas staged.

“We had planned the programme after discussing with a group of former students and officials of Visva-Bharati, as our goal was to bring the actual traditional programmes before the crowd. We are successful,” organiser Mondal.

In the traditional Basanta Utsav observed by Visva-Bharati, the programme starts from the eve of the Holi through a procession called Baitalik. In the morning, over a 1,000 students marched in a procession singing Tagore songs. In the evening, the varsity organises a dance drama by Tagore.

Varsity sources declined comment on the events, alluding to an event last week that reportedly mimicked Basanta Utsav but was held within closed quarters owing either to Covid-19, or the campus climate, or both.

“We followed precautions in hosting a song and dance here today, and a performance of Rabindrasangeet,” said organiser Aminul Huda at the handicrafts market.

Trinamul’s Bolpur candidate and fisheries minister Chandranath Sinha was present at both the events.

“We want the people of Bolpur to enjoy their heritage and we support these events. They are being held to protest the varsity dispensation’s attitude,” he said.

Sources in the ruling party said the events were organised to prove a point to the current varsity authorities led by vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, allegedly with a saffron bias.

In a related event, BJP workers led a folk-song procession in observance of Holi up to the campus grounds on Sunday afternoon.

“We always want Visva-Bharati to uphold its traditions. If Trinamul is alleging politics in this, it’s because they are closely linked to the VC. We have nothing to do with all this,” said BJP candidate Anirban Ganguly.