Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari has moved Calcutta High Court seeking an order to postpone chief minister Mamata Banerjee's scheduled interfaith march on January 22, the day of the Ayodhya Ram temple inauguration, and also the deployment of central forces in the state on that day.
Adhikari accused Mamata of being against those who wish to worship Ram, while Trinamul called the BJP leader "anti-peace".
Adhikari's petition, filed on Wednesday, is likely to be taken up for hearing by a division bench headed by Justice Harish Tandon on Thursday.
"In our state also, the people have planned many programmes on that day to celebrate the inaugural programme. The programme called by the ruling party might create chaos in the state. So the court should ask Trinamul to postpone its programme," Adhikari's petition stated.
The petition recalled the clashes last year during Ram Navami. “Keeping the incidents in mind, the court should call central forces for maintaining peace in the state,” the plea added.
The chief minister on Tuesday said she would visit the Kalighat temple, offer puja at the shrine and then lead an interfaith harmony rally from 4pm with representatives from various communities on January 22, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi will helm the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
She said Trinamul’s district units would organise similar harmony rallies in all 341 blocks of the state earlier that day.
“It is very alarming... she is practically encouraging disruption of peace in every block, like on Ram Navami (last year), so that there is damage to life and property,” Adhikari told reporters on Wednesday.
Trinamul said that by taking such a stand against the chief minister’s march for harmony, Adhikari had proved once again that he and his party were against peace.
“Mamata Banerjee has called for a march and meeting for integration, this is highly commendable. She has scheduled it ahead of the historic occasions of January 23 (Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary) and January 26 (Republic Day),” said Trinamul general secretary Kunal Ghosh.
“Those who do not want amity, integration, harmony, peace, and want to spread the venom of division through religious polarisation, only they will object to this,” he added. “They are trying to stop it, moving the court. Only those who are in favour of division and the venom of polarisation. The people will judge them.”
On Wednesday, Trinamul conducted a meeting at state president Subrata Bakshi’s Bhowanipore office along with the councillors and party chiefs of various wards of the city, besides the party’s south Calcutta district unit chief, Debasish Kumar.
At the meeting, the route of the unity rally — Hazra crossing, Hazra Road, Ballygunge Phari, Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Park Circus seven-point crossing, Park Circus Maidan — was finalised. All leaders of individual rallies from various wards of Calcutta have been told to gather at the starting point (Hazra crossing) by 2.45pm.
“Placards and banners bearing apolitical messages of peace, harmony and amity are being ordered for the rally,” a Trinamul leader said.
“Representatives from all faiths, from every corner of the city, will be present,” he added.
