Mamata Banerjee changes FB, Twitter DPs to 'Jai Hind, Jai Bangla'

Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: Days after losing her cool on BJP activists chanting 'Jai Shri Ram', West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and front ranking leaders of her Trinammol Congress changed their display picture on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to 'Jay Hind, Jay Bangla on Sunday night.

Earlier in the day, Banerjee in a detailed Facebook post accused the BJP of mixing religion with politics and urged people to deter any sort of chaos and unrest.

The picture of Trinamool's official Twitter and Facebook accounts also were changed to 'Jay Hind, Jay Bangla' with pictures of Mahatma Gandhi, revolutionary leaders Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Matangini Hazra, Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore, and rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Photos of leading 19th century Bengal Renaissance figures like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, as also religious and social thinker Swami Vivekananda and father of Indian Constitution B R Ambedkar were also part of the new display pictures.

Banerjee and other Trinamool leaders had changed their social media DPs to display a photo of Vidyasagar, after a bust of the venerated champion of women's emancipation was demolished in connection with unrest related to BJP chief Amit Shah's election roadshow in Kolkata last month.

"Jai Sia Ram, Jai Ram ji ki, Ram Naam Satya hai etc. have religious and social connotations. We respect these sentiments. But BJP is using religious slogan Jai Sri Ram as their party slogan in a misconceived manner by way of mixing religion with politics," Banerjee wrote in her Facebook post.

"We do not respect this forcible enforcement of political slogans on others in the name of so-called RSS which Bengal never accepted. This is a deliberate attempt to sell hatred ideology through vandalism and violence which we must oppose together".

Clarifying that she has no issues with any party slogan, she wrote: "I have no problem, regarding any particular slogan of political parties in their rallies, and for their party purpose. Every political party has their own slogan. My party has Jai Hind, Vande Mataram. The Left has Inquilab Zindabad. Others have different slogans. We respect each other."

The Trinamool Congress supremo said one cannot "fool" the people all the time. She warned everyone against divisiveness being spread in Bengal.

"This is high time that proper action is taken to restrain political workers not to indulge in activities of creating unrest, chaos, violence and disruption of normal life by taking recourse to misplaced ideologies in the so-called name of religion to create a divide among the people. If all other political parties start resorting to these sort of divisive and disruptive activities, then the entire environment would become highly vitiated and counterproductive," she said.

She urged people to oppose such moves of BJP very strongly in order to keep the secular character of the country as enshrined in the Constitution.

"I appeal to all the people of the country and the state to give a befitting reply to hatred politics and show respect to our country's glorious culture and heritage. Let us all be proud of our culture and heritage. Jai Hind, Jai Bangla, Joyo He," Banerjee added.

She said BJP is trying to spread ideology of hatred through a section of the media. "The so-called BJP media and so-called fake video, fake news, misinformation and disinformation to create confusion and to suppress truth and reality," she wrote.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates