Tathagata Roy criticises state BJP for insulting ‘Maa Sarada’

Kolkata: Echoing the voice of Trinamool Congress (TMC), BJP’s Tathagata Roy on Sunday criticised state BJP and its IT setup for making a caricature of Maa Sarada Devi.

In a post on X, Roy said: “Ma Sarada, the consort of Sri Ramakrishna, and Guru-Patni to Swami Vivekananda, is held in enormous respect among Hindus of West Bengal, including me. Yesterday there was a caricature of her emanating from @BJP4Bengal. Samik Bhattacharya, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member-designate and its principal spokesperson, has promptly apologized for it, but that will mend it only partially. What sort of stupid people have been put in its IT setup beats me…” State BJP made a social media post caricaturing Bengal Chief Minister and also Maa Sarada Devi. In the post the BJP apparently used a photograph of Maa Sarada Devi with Banerjee’s photo on it with a caption “I am the mother of Madan, I am the mother of Hakim as well. This claim is false. During elections I look away when Madan’s wife is tortured by Hakim”.

The state BJP might have made an indirect reference to the Sandeshkhali incident and tried to portray that Trinamool Congress supremo does not care when a woman from a particular community has assaulted in the hands of people from

another community. Senior Trinamool Congress leader and state Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya on last Friday criticised the Bengal BJP for utilising the name of Maa Sarada Devi for narrow political interest. Trinamool Congress on Saturday attacked the state BJP for not removing the caricature of Maa Sarada Devi from its social media post. Another senior Trinamool Congress leader Shashi Panja had said: “We have seen the BJP attacking our idols. They have repeatedly insulted the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. They do not know the history of Bengal and have now stooped to a new low with this insulting post on Maa Sarada, who is revered across the state.”