TMC opposes BJP’s push to rename Sealdah Stn after Syama Prasad Mookerjee

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP have engaged in verbal duel over renaming of Sealdah Station. Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh suggested that if Sealdah Station is to be renamed, it should be in honour of Swami Vivekananda.

“When Swami Vivekananda returned from the US after delivering his historic speech at Chicago’s Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893, he arrived at Sealdah Station, where the people of Kolkata welcomed him and organised a procession in his honour,” Ghosh said.

Senior BJP leader Sukanta Majumdar on Sunday in the inauguration of AC train in Sealdah-Ranaghat section once again advocated for renaming Sealdah station after Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Ghosh refuted Majumdar’s claim saying “Syama Prasad Mookerjee is a respected person. We have a port named after him. What is the necessity to rename Sealdah Station after him? If the name is to be changed it should be after Swami Vivekananda as he came here after delivering a historic speech at Chicago.”

Incidentally, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s grandnephew Chandra Bose recently criticised BJP MP Samik Bhattacharya for demanding that Sealdah Railway Station be renamed after Syama Prasad Mookerjee and argued that his “communal politics” contradicts Bengal’s and secular values. While Mookerjee is respected as an educationist, he is also known as the “divider of Bengal”, Bose said. Bose, a former BJP state vice-president, made his remarks a day after Bhattacharya, the Rajya MP, appealed to Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to rename Sealdah station after Syama Prasad Mookerjee in recognition of his efforts in helping refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during Partition.

“Syama Prasad Mookerjee is honoured in Bengal as an educationist, not as a social reformer, not as a politician,” Chandra Bose had said. He added: “Changing the name of Sealdah station after Syama Prasad Mookerjee is against the ideology of Bengal, which is inclusive and secular.”