Trinamool Congress wanted to turn Bengal into ‘Greater Bangladesh’: Suvendu Adhikari

West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Suvendu Adhikari has accused previous Left Front and Trinamool Congress governments of suppressing what he described as “Sanatani traditions and culture”, alleging that the Left treated religion as “opium” while the TMC sought to turn the state into “Greater Bangladesh”.

After inaugurating a Ganesh Puja pandal at Kestopur in Kolkata on Saturday, Suvendu Adhikari said the alleged efforts to undermine the state’s cultural identity had continued for nearly five decades, referring to the 34-year Left rule and the 15-year TMC rule in the state.

“For the past 49 years, for 34 years those who called dharma ‘opium’ were in power under the communists, and for the next 15 years they (the TMC) tried to make it into Greater Bangladesh. Now a government has come which wants to bring back the culture and ‘parampara’ (tradition) that was being forgotten,” Adhikari said.

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He alleged that during the Left Front rule, stalls outside puja pandals displayed books by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin but not works by Swami Vivekananda or Lokenath Baba. “You wouldn’t find the Hanuman Chalisa or the Bhagavad Gita. It was explicitly declared there that they did not believe in religion and considered it opium,” he said.

Targeting the previous Trinamool Congress government, Suvendu Adhikari alleged that attempts were made during its tenure to “Jamati-ise” Bengal. Without naming former chief minister Mamata Banerjee, he referred to the decision to restrict Durga Puja immersion on a day coinciding with Muharram.

“In 15 years of their tenure, not in the first tenure but in the last part, they tried to turn Bengal into Jamati. One year the day of immersion was changed… She had said during the meeting that there is Muharram, thus Bijoy Dashami there would be no immersion. One cannot do that. One has to follow the panjika. Our parampara was slowly being changed,” he said.

Source : The Indian Express