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CPM
may land in soup over poll graffiti ridiculing Trinamool chief
Santanu Banerjee
Kolkata,
April 14:
IT COULD have been just another poll graffiti, but the CPI(M) apparently
went for the overkill. As a result, the party runs the risk of courting
popular indignation and, of course, a controversy.
‘‘You
attain enlightenment,’’ says Trinamool Congress leader
Ajit Kumar Panja in the graffiti portraying him as Ramakrishna Paramhansa,
to chief Mamata Banerjee. But Mamata insists: ‘‘I don’t
want to attain enlightenment. Oh Lord, make me the chief minister.’’
Incidentally,
Panja played Ramakrishna Paramhansa with considerable success in
a drama about Ramakrishna’s life few months ago.
‘‘No one with a clear sense of purpose would have involved
Ramakrishna in political campaigning; it’s in bad taste,’’
said a monk in Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math, on condition of
anonymity.
Though it’s not known if the Mission is seriously thinking
of lodging a protest, the Trinamool Congress yesterday claimed to
have met the state’s Chief Electoral Officer on the issue.
Chief of the party’s education cell Supriya Chattopadhyaya
met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sabyasachi Sen and lodged a serious
complaint urging him to order removal of such graffiti.
Speaking to The Indian Express yesterday, senior Trinamool leader
Sobhondeb Chattopadhyaya said: ‘‘We have urged the CEO
to order immediate withdrawal of such graffiti which hurt people’s
sentiments. We will wait to see if such instructions are carried
out or else we’ll launch a campaign to tell people about the
CPI(M)’s impertinence.
They brought
in even a religious prophet like Ramakrishna into the election campaign
for petty political purposes,’’ Chattopadhyaya said.
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