The saffron push by the BJP for the West Bengal Assembly polls in April-May 2021 has triggered a new political phenomenon – BJP men taking to saffron, literally.
Rahul Shrivastava: Shah Rukh Khan’s hit song “Rang de tu mohe gerua” (colour me saffron) finds a flavour in Bengal politics. In real life, the saffron push by the BJP for the West Bengal Assembly polls in April-May 2021 has triggered a new political phenomenon – BJP men taking to saffron, literally!
On Monday, BJP MP from Bishnupur Saumitra Khan organised a prayer meeting. During the ritual carried out by pundits, Khan underwent a “mundan” ceremony (tonsuring of head as per Hindu scriptures).
Saumitra Khan performed the ritual wearing a saffron robe. Right after the ceremony, he declared that he would wear only saffron clothes for the next year – “till the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in West Bengal is voted out”.
Speaking to India Today TV, Khan said he has taken a pledge at the ceremony to forsake growing hair on his head and regular clothes for a shaved head and “gerua” clothes till the Mamata Banerjee government is ousted from West Bengal.
To make his saffron plunge substantial, Khan posted the visuals of the ceremony on social platforms – Twitter and Facebook.
Saumitra Khan is not restricting his saffron drive to wearing saffron clothes and keeping his head shaved. He is also planning to distribute Lord Shiva’s trishul to 90,000 people across the state to ‘atone his sins commited during his time in the TMC’.
“TMC jo paap kar rahi thi aur hum uske saath the, uska prayashchit kar rahe hain. Aise mundan karke aur gerua kapdo mein rahenge. TMC ke karyakarta BJP walon ko maar rahe hain. Isliye pehle charan mein, atma raksha ke liye Bhagwan Shiv ke 90,000 trishul ghar ghar mein baantenge. (I was with the TMC which committed sins. So the shaving of the head and saffron clothes are my act of atonement. TMC goons are killing BJP workers. So in the first phase, the Yuva Morcha will distribute 90,000 tridents in a door-to-door campaign)
Saumitra Khan is no ordinary Bengal MP. He can be called the state’s perfect “ayaram gayaram” or in simple terms a quintessential political turncoat. The politician from Bankura courts controversy regularly. He was elected as an MLA on a Congress ticket in 2011.
At the peak of the Modi wave in 2014, he migrated from the Congress to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and got elected as an MP from Bishnupur seat.
By the time his term was ending, his ambitions drove him to the arms of the BJP. Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, he ditched the Trinamool Congress, after raising a hue and cry over one of his lieutenants being booked by the state police on charges of illegal trading of firearms.
Interestingly, the BJP in Bengal is buzzing over Khan’s act. Many insiders say that Khan is out to prove his strident Hindutva credential.
Some senior BJP leaders feel that a race for the BJP’s chief ministerial face has started and in the absence of a clear leader, many in the party’s state unit seem to be nursing the ambition. Speaking to India Today TV, Khan however denied that he was in the chief ministerial race.
In 2016, the BJP had named Chandra Kumar Bose, the grand nephew of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as the CM face fighting Mamata Banerjee. Bose has joined the party in January 2016 in a ceremony led by then BJP president Amit Shah.
BJP insiders feel the party needs a son of the soil face to dethrone deeply entrenched Mamata Banerjee and has to avoid what’s called “Hindi-fication” of its politics while working for a sharp polarisation of the electorate.
The BJP sprang a surprise in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by winning 18 of the 42 seats in the state. The BJP, ideally, would like the 2021 Assembly poll to be a binary between PM Narendra Modi and CM Mamata Banerjee.
It has current state president and MP Dilip Ghosh as a contender. Since the BJP is trying to make right-wing or saffron issues part of the central discourse in Bengal, Ghosh – a one time RSS activist – desperately tried to prove his deep Hindutva credentials in July. He recommended drinking cow urine to fight the coronavirus. At a chai par charcha in Durgapur he had said, “If I talk about cows, people fall sick. I tell them a donkey will not understand the worth of cow. This is India, the land of Lord Krishna and here cows are the Gods we worship. We will have cow urine to stay healthy. Take ayurvedic medicine and don’t worry.”
Interestingly, the other names for the BJP’s CM face in Bengal doing the rounds are Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta and former Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy.
The jostling for post seems to be on as last week, Roy – who held a Constitutional post considered apolitical – had thrown his hat in the ring. He had said, “If my party decides that I am a fit candidate, I shall consider it.” Roy who has been desperately wanting to return to active politics added that he has already expressed this before the party’s central leadership. His term as governor of the northeastern state has ended. Former J&K Governor Satyapal Malik was on Tuesday appointed as the new Meghalaya governor.
There is an active rivalry between Roy and Ghosh. Roy, who held the post of West Bengal BJP president in the past, had made a scathing attack against Ghosh’s remarks on efficacy of cow’s urine. He had said, “Nonsense. Bengal public will not accept it. We don’t worship the cow in the sense that is done in North India. We have to talk in terms of our Bengali culture. We want to appeal to Bengali people’s reason and not to their love for the cow.”
