Politicians, common people celebrate Poila Baisakh with gusto

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Thursday offered a puja at Kalighat temple and spent some time with her relatives at her house on Harish Chatterjee Street to celebrate Poila Baishak, Bengali New Year’s day.

It has been her long practise to spend some time with her relatives at home. She left for Birbhum and Nadia to address public meetings. 

She wished the people of the state on the occasion in a tweet. The CPI(M) state secretary Suryakanta Misra and governor KN Tripathi also wished the people on Bengali New Year’s Day.

Thousands of devotees visited Dakshineshwar temple and Kalighat and offered puja on Poila Baishakh braving excessive heat. 

At Dakshineshwar special arrangements were made to give water to the devotees. In many places cultural programmes were held to welcome the New Year. Politicians used the occasion to build contact with the electorate and visited local clubs and places of worship.

In Eco Park thousands of people gathered to celebrate the first day of the New Year. Special Bengali food was available at café Ekante and at the Houseboat Restaurant. 

The restaurant is the new addition to the Eco Park. 

A seminar on the future of Bengali cinema was held in Nazrul Tirtha where important cinema personalities took part in the discussion. Anindya Chatterjee’s Open T Bioscope was shown.  A programme on Baul gan and playing of dhamsa was held at the Eco Park.

Many NGOs distributed sweets and new clothes among the patients of state run hospitals. New clothes were distributed among AIDS patients. Thursday was the 125th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar, father of the Indian Constitution and several programmes were held to mark the occasion. 

Seminar and symposia were held on the life and work of Babasaheb Ambedkar. His statue in the maidan was garlanded in the morning. To mark the day, morning processions were taken out by children who danced to Rabindra Sangeet in many localities of north Kolkata.