Nusrat Jahan, the newly elected MP from West Bengal’s Basirhat constituency – who won by the largest margin among the Trinamool Congress MPs – sent out a message of unity during Rathyatra on Thursday.
Nusrat Jahan made headlines on her first visit to the Parliament where she posed along with fellow Trinamool Congress MP Mimi Chakraborty in Western wear. Later, Nusrat left for Dubai, where she got married to Nikil Jain, a businessman. After the wedding, Nusrat wore sindoor and mangalsutra (the traditional “signs” associated with married Hindu women) as she took oath as MP, and this time she was criticised by a section of Muslims for wearing these signs.
On Friday, Nusrat Jahan was a special invitee along with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to the annual Rath Yatra in Kolkata’s Minto Park organised by Iskcon.
“Didi (Mamata Banerjee) comes for Eid. There is no politics in all this. It is just about faith. Let’s keep politics and religion apart,” Nusrat said at the event.
Banerjee pulled the chariot of Lord Jagannath, saying, “Jai Jagannath, Jai Hind, Jai Bangla”. This was considered by some as using a religious occasion for promoting her party’s slogan. However, the Trinamool Congress leadership said that “Jai Hind and Jai Bangla” are not the party’s exclusive slogans but had more to do with a citizen’s love for the country and the state.
Nusrat has said earlier that she didn’t bother about the criticism she had to face for what she chose to wear. “I don’t pay heed to baseless things,” she said, adding that young India didn’t care about these things and wanted secularism, inclusiveness and humanity.
News agency PTI quoted Radharaman Das, an Iskcon official saying that Nusrat Jahan represented an “inclusive India”, and that the rathyatra was an “example of social harmony”.
