West Bengal has assembly elections next year. Before the assembly elections, the state’s politics is hot on Ram Navami on Sunday. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Hindu Organization Vishwa Hindu Parishad have announced to take out a Ram Navami procession in various districts including Kolkata. Tight security arrangements have been made in view of the violence in the last several years. Police has been deployed in Kolkata on a rumble. Mamta Banerjee’s government has decided to ensure security arrangements with the police, so BJP has planned to compete with the Jagannath temple politically.
In West Bengal, the BJP is constantly trying to unite Hindus and is accusing Mamata Banerjee of appeasement of minorities, but Mamata Banerjee has been competing with BJP’s Hindutva with soft Hindutva policy.
In the last assembly election too, the Trinamool Congress had accused the BJP of being outsider and accused the culture of Bengal and Mamata Banerjee defeated BJP in the 2021 assembly elections and 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Jagannath Temple inaugurated on Akshaya Tritiya
On behalf of the West Bengal government, a temple is being built on the lines of Jagannath Temple in Puri in Digha. Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate this temple on the occasion of Akshaya Tritiya at the end of April. The inauguration of Jagannath Dham in Digha is going to be a ‘stage’ to display Hindutva in response to Ramnavami.
For the last few months, one thing is clear from what the BJP leaders including Shubhendu officer have been saying – BJP wants to unite all Hindu votes. Shubhendu Adhikari says that Trinamool actually wants to create partition among Hindus by making ‘Bengali-Angel’.
While the BJP is desperate to polarize Hindu votes and make it in its favor, the Trinamool Congress is also trying to present Hindutva under the guise of Bengali.
Ram vs Jagannath, political fierce in Bengal
Many people in political circles are looking at the inauguration of Jagannath Dham from another perspective. According to him, the person who is currently doing BJP politics under the guise of fierce Hindutva in Bengal is the opposition leader Shubhendu officer. Former Medinipur is the home district of Shubhendu Adhikari. Mamta will inaugurate Jagannath Dham in the same former Medinipur and she will try to pressurize Shubhendu Adhikari in this way.
The Chief Minister visited Jagannath Dham in Digha to inspect the work last December. The Chief Minister was also accompanied by Radharaman Das, the head of ISKCON Kolkata. At that time, there was unrest in Bangladesh over the arrest of ISKCON monk Chinmikrishna Das. Shubhendu Adhikari also took to the streets and took out a procession, but Kolkata ISKCON’s representative went to Digha with Mamta. There was a lot of politics in Bengal about this. Mamta Banerjee has been inaugurating ISKCON chariot every year on Rath Yatra.
Mamta’s soft Hindutva card to compete with BJP
Mamta Banerjee has also claimed beautification and renovation of many temples in the state. These include the temple of Dakshineswar. Political analysts say that Mamta Banerjee is planning to compete with Ram Navami with Jagannath temple. He says that it cannot be denied that Jagannath Dev is more close to the lives of Bengalis than Shri Ramchandra. Its history is also very old. Rath Yatra for any Bengali means Jagannath-Balaram-Surabhadra.
The Hindu culture in which the BJP believes in does not match the Bengali Hindus and Mamata Banerjee has been playing political games on this spirit of Bengalis and Mamata Banerjee has been running soft Hindutva card compared to BJP’s Hindutva.