Days after publicly erupting to Jai Shri Ram chant by BJP supporters, Mamata Banerjee on Sunday attacked the RSS for forcing a religious slogan on Bengal for narrow political gains.
Trying to put across her point in the social media against politicising religious slogans, the Bengal Chief Minister said “Jai Shri Ram, Jai Ram Ji Ki” were all religious slogans being used by the BJP with political underpinnings.
Her facebook comment read: “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 further said, “This is a deliberate attempt to sell hatred ideology through vandalism and violence which we must oppose together.”
Comparing slogans like: “Bande Mataram, Jai Hind” used by Trinamool Congress or Congress and “Inqilab Zindabad” raised by the Marxists, Banerjee said those were political slogans and “I have respect for them,” adding the RSS on the other hand was trying to “mislead” the people by cunningly mixing catchphrase having “religious or social connotations” with political slogan which was dangerous for the Indian society and would definitely create a turmoil.
Alleging that there was a deliberate attempt by the saffron outfit to propagate an ideology of hatred through vandalism and violence Banerjee called upon the people of India to rise up and “oppose such moves” so as to “keep secular character of t he country as enshrined” in the Constitution intact.
Of late “Jai Shri Ram” had grabbed the headlines with the Chief Minister expressing her public outburst to the slogan whenever her cavalcade is welcome by the crowds of BJP supporters. Similar incidents took place during the election campaign at Midnapore where she ran into BJP men chanting Jai Shri Ram even as she was driving past and at Naihati and Bhatpara north of Kolkata where she got off her car and confronted the crowd chanting Jai Shri Ram.
Earlier on Saturday TMC turncoat-turned-BJP-MP Arjun Singh challenged Banerjee saying his party men would send 10 lakh Jai Shri Ram slogans to Banerjee’s official residence “let me see what she does.”
Meanwhile, continuing post-poll violence clashes between the BJP and TMC supporters throughout Bengal. BJP supporters reportedly attacked TMC party offices at Diamond Harbour, Uday Narayanpur, Jahangirpur, Gangarampur, Kanchrapara and other places sources said. At Khejuri a CPI(M) bastion subsequently taken over by the TMC on Saturday and Sunday saw BJP men gheraoing local Trinamool MLA for hours leading to clashes between the members of the two parties.