Don't mix religion with politics: Mamata to BJP
Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a Facebook post on Sunday accusing the BJP of mixing religion with politics. She said the party was using "Jai Sri Ram", which is a religious chant, as their party slogan in a misconceived manner and raising such slogans was a deliberate attempt to promote ideology of hatred through vandalism and violence and the practice should opposed by all.
The Chief Minister wrote on her Facebook Page: "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. One can fool some people sometimes, but cannot fool all the people all the time."
Banerjee feels such activities could create chaos and confusion among people.
"This is high time that proper action is taken to restrain political workers so that they don't indulge in activities that lead to unrest, chaos, violence and disruption of normal life by taking recourse to misplaced ideologies in the so-called name of religion to create divide among the people. If all other political parties start resorting to these sorts of divisive and disruptive activities, then the whole environment would become highly vitiated and counterproductive," she wrote.
Banerjee called for opposing such moves of the BJP 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," she further said.
Banerjee said she had no problem about slogans raised by political parties in their rallies. "Every political party has its own slogan. My party's has "Jai Hind" and 'Vande Mataram'. The Left has 'Inquilab Zindabad'. Others have various slogans. We respect each other. 'Jai Sia Ram', 'Jai Ram ji ki', 'Ram naam Satya hai' etc have religious and social connotations. We respect these sentiments," she said.
She reiterated that from Ram Mohan Roy to Vidyasagar to other great social reformers, Bengal has been a seat of harmony, progress and forward thinking. "But now, the misconceived strategy of the BJP is targeting Bengal in a very negative manner," she said.
According to her post, some BJP supporters are trying to spread ideology of hatred through one section of media to create confusion and suppress truth.
