While West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC Supremo Mamata Banerjee stirred controversy after she hit out at those people shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, her party member Madan Moitra had announced that he will hold Ram Katha in his home turf in Bhawanipur from July 24. This means he will also put up statues of Gods Ram and Sita including Goddess Durga during the puja.
“I will start a program with a title Ram Katha and I will ask people from different religious institutions and people from different universities to start from July 24 and it will continue… that what is the basic concept of Ram, whether we are misusing, exploiting or taking advantage or if we oppose a particular slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ ultimately in the end what of the day what do we get,” he said.
After a certain group chanted the religious slogan ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as her cavalcade was passing by, she got extremely furious and then later also asked the state police to inspect whether the group which was chanting the slogan were from outside.
In June, she launched a scathing attack on BJP and the media for reports and speculations of her displeasure at sloganeers chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in West Bengal. The TMC chief took to Facebook to explain that each party has its own slogan and that she did not have any issue with any slogan.
TMC Supremo said that she doesn’t have any issue over the slogans of political parties as each political party has their own. Mamata Banerjee went on to add saying that her party has Jai Hind, Vande Mataram.
“I have no problem, regarding any particular slogan of political parties in their rallies, and for their party purpose. Every political party has its own slogan. My party has Jai Hind, Vande Mataram. The Left has Inquilab Zindabad. Others have different slogans. We respect each other,” she wrote.
Mamata also said that the saffron party was using the chant in a political manner. She said BJP is using religious slogan Jai Sri Ram as their party slogan in a wrong way of combining religion with politics.
“BJP is using religious slogan Jai Sri Ram as their party slogan in a misconceived manner by way of mixing religion with politics. We do not respect this forcible enforcement of political slogans on others in the name of so-called RSS which Bengal never accepted,” she added in a statement.