Kolkata: West Bengal's biggest festival Durga Puja is just days away and the BJP is gearing up to catch the festive frenzy. The saffron party is rushing its national President JP Nadda to Kolkata on Saturday to be with local party leaders and workers on the occasion of Maha Saptami. State BJP sources said that Nadda, who is slated to arrive in Kolkata in the morning, will visit some community Puja pandals, and interact with the organisers as well as the visitors there.
A BJP state committee member said the party’s national president is scheduled to visit the pandals of three community puja committees on that day. “He is unlikely to give any political message during that visit. In all probability, he will fly back to New Delhi on the same evening,” the state committee member of the party said.
Incidentally, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Kolkata on Monday during the inauguration of Durga Puja, also said he came to West Bengal not to talk politics but to seek blessing from the goddess to give him strength to lead the BJP to uproot the corrupt Trinamool Congress government in the eastern state.
"At a time when the Ram Mandir is yet to be built in Ayodhya, people of West Bengal gave us Ram Mandir at a pandal in North Kolkata. This symbolises peoples' devotion to Lord Ram," Shah said while inaugurating Santosh Mitra Square Durga Puja, which models Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
The Durga Puja festival this year is being viewed very seriously by the central leadership of the party and is an important medium for the party leaders to interact with the common people on the occasion. “In fact, the central leadership has directed the state leaders of the party to get associated with as many Durga Pujas as possible,” he said.
The Union Home Minister made a quick visit to Kolkata to inaugurate the community Puja of Santosh Mitra Square at Lebutala Park in central Kolkata, whose principal organiser is the BJP councillor in Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Sajal Ghosh. On that occasion, he sought the blessing of Goddess Durga to free West Bengal of the 'violence' and 'corruption' in the coming days.“This is not the occasion for making political statements. So, I will not do that now. But I will be frequenting the state more, making political statements and ensuring that there is change in the state,” Shah said on the occasion.
The very next day Governor C.V. Ananda Bose gave a call to the people of West Bengal to take oath in the name of Ma Durga to continue the fight against 'corruption' and 'violence' in the state.
