Bengal SIR: EC would have summoned Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose too? Asks Mamata Banerj
Bengal SIR: EC would have summoned Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose too? Asks Mamata Banerjee
M.U.H
24/01/202616
Mamata Banerjee has wondered if the Election Commission would have called Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, too, to a hearing to prove his nationality and ability to vote if he were alive today.
The Bengal chief minister's fresh invective against the EC's special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list came from the dais of a programme held on the birth anniversary of Netaji on Friday.
She termed the SIR in Bengal a "danobikota (demonism)" that had already "claimed over 110 lives".
“If Netaji were alive, would he have been summoned for the SIR hearing on the pretext of a logical discrepancy? Would he also have been asked whether he was an Indian or not?” she asked, bringing up a hearing notice to Netaji's grandnephew Chandra Bose, a former BJP leader known once for his perceived proximity to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Chandra was present on her stage on Friday. Alongside him was another grandnephew, Sugata Bose, a Harvard historian and former MP from Mamata's party. The leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, called on Sugata at Netaji Bhavan on Friday.
Mamata also referred to notices served on 92-year-old Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen (besides 81-year-old former chief of India's naval staff Arun Prakash and former foreign secretary of India Krishnan Srinivasan, who turns 89 in weeks).
“Amartya Sen has been summoned because of the age difference between the parents. Will they then arrange people's marriages too? Will they decide who will love whom?” she asked, questioning the criteria used to flag genuine electors as "doubtful".
Mamata juxtaposed the "conspiracies" of Delhi against the unfulfilled legacy of Netaji.
Mamata has repeatedly alleged that the BJP is deliberately trying to make people forget the role played by Bengal and Bengalis and attacked the Sangh Parivar for its indubitably dubious role in the freedom struggle.
The Trinamool Congress chairperson has reminded the people that the BJP keeps undermining Bengal’s glorious legacy. She has been fiercely critical of attempts by the saffron ecosystem to have Indian history rewritten and attempts at deifying “controversial” figures that the saffron ecosystem considers iconic, such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Deendayal Upadhyaya — sometimes at the cost of more widely accepted icons with inclusive, secular philosophies, such as Netaji.
Mamata said if the BJP came to power in Bengal, the party would decimate everything its people hold dear, from the culture to the language.
“Delhi is (now) a city of conspiracy. Conspiracies are always being planned there against Bengal (in the saffron regime)," added the Trinamool chairperson.
“More than 110 people have already died. Three to four people are committing suicide every day out of fear. Why won't a case be filed against the Election Commission? The commission must take responsibility for so many deaths. The Union government must also take responsibility."
Recalling Netaji’s Dilli Chalo war cry against the British Raj, Mamata called for a renewed march against those akin to mythological antagonists in modern politics.
“Today you are in power; tomorrow when you are not there, people will not let you go so easily.... Let us once again raise the slogan... the aim should be to establish manobikota (humanity) in place of danobikota," she added to loud cheers from the audience.
State BJP chief Shamik Bhattacharya responded with derision and asserted that the party would be happy to have history rewritten across the globe.
"Those who were born and raised in politics in the womb and home of the Congress should not dare talk about the treatment of national icons," he claimed, referring to her past in the Congress, although Trinamool had been a BJP ally in several phases.
"We indeed are changing the history of this country by getting rid of the colonial hangover.... We will do so with all of world history, if we can," he added, his silence conspicuous on the widely recorded loathing in Netaji for the likes of Mookerjee and Savarkar.
