Team News Riveting
Kolkata, May 28
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting the two-storey building in North Calcutta’s Bagbazar, associated for over a century with Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Maa Sarada, has make the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and its Chief Mamata Banerjee comfortable.
The TMC did not miss the opportunity to give it a political colour. However, Modi’s visit and interaction with the monks in the historic building has put the TMC in a fix. It added significance in the backdrop of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s name calling of some Hindu monks, whom she accused of “interference” in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
The house at Mayer Bari where the Prime Minister visited has become a pilgrimage for the disciples of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Maa Sarada, and in the decades that followed, for the people of Bengal as well as tourists. On May 23, 1909, Maa Sarada had moved from her abode in Dakshineswar to the Bagbazar house. When the building was completed in 1908, the offices of the Mission’s journal, Udbodhan, occupied the ground floor, while Maa Sarada lived on the floor above.
Modi visited the building and interacted with monks from various Hindu monastic orders including the Ramkrishna Mission.
In his recent speeches while campaigning in Bengal, Modi has raised the issue in every speech to claim that India will not forgive Mamata for her utterances against the monks of the Ramakrishna Mission and others like the Bharat Sevashram. Tuesday’s public meetings addressed by Modi were no different.
“The Trinamul has started abusing the Hindu monks and ascetics,” he said on Tuesday in his address at Barasat’s Ashoknagar ahead of his visit to Mayer Bari. “Ramakrishna Mission, Iskcon and Bharat Sevashram Sangha are respected all over the world, but Trinamul has started abusing them to carry forward its agenda of vote jihad.”
The Prime Minister on Tuesday held his first roadshow in Kolkata, West Bengal. Before starting the roadshow, Modi paid tributes at the statue of Subhas Chandra Bose. He held a 2.5 km roadshow from Shyam Bazar to Shimla Street.
