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Mahua Moitra , Trinamool Congress MP is is no mood to let go her attack on the BJP. Under fire for her recent comment on Goddess Kali, she has asserted that the saffron party is not the custodian of Hindu deities and it shouldn’t teach Bengalis how to worship the goddess.
She said the BJP can’t impose its views, based on ways of worshipping deities in North India, on people of other parts of the country who have different rituals that are in vogue for the last 2,000 years.
Moitra, while speaking to a Bengali news channel on Thursday night, said she had acted as a “mature politician” by speaking on the issue as BJP’s attempt to “impose its agenda of Hindutva and thrusting its monolithic views” on other ethnic groups should be resisted and addressed once and for all for the sake of the country.
Jai Ma Kali!
The goddess Bengalis worship is fearless & non-appeasing.
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) July 6, 2022
“I think I acted as a mature politician. For long, we had avoided the issue of BJP imposing its own version of Hinduism, which is based on established norms of North India. The party should desist from imposing it on people of other parts of the country such as West Bengal where Hindus follow their well-established rituals for centuries. Who is the BJP to teach us how to conduct puja of Goddess Kali in a particular way?” she said.
“Neither Lord Ram nor Lord Hanuman solely belongs to the BJP. Has the party taken the lease of Hindu dharma?” she said.
Bring it on BJP!
Am a Kali worshipper. I am not afraid of anything. Not your ignoramuses. Not your goons. Not your police. And most certainly not your trolls.
Truth doesn’t need back up forces.
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) July 6, 2022
Recalling how the TMC defeated the BJP in the West Bengal assembly elections last year, Moitra said, “It is a party of outsiders that tried to impose its Hindutva politics but was snubbed by the electorate. BJP should not teach us how to worship Maa Kali. Being a Kali bhakt (devotee), I know how to worship Kali. We had been worshipping the goddess in the same way for the past 2,000 years.” She alleged that the BJP is on the back-foot over controversial remarks of its now-suspended spokesperson Nupur Sharma and was trying to deflect the attention to Moitra’s Kali comments, while asserting that the saffron party will not succeed.
On cases filed against her in different states over her remarks, Moitra said, “I challenge the respective BJP governments of these states, where FIRs have been registered, to give in writing in an affidavit to the court about offerings made to Goddess Kali.” “Can the Assam CM explain in writing to the court what offerings are made to the presiding deity of Kamakhya Temple? Can the CMs of other BJP-ruled states do the same about offerings made to Maa Kali in temples there? Is liquor not part of the offerings in these temples? BJP desperately wants to pin me down as I fiercely protest its misdeeds but I know its strategy won’t work,” he said.
