West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee today said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should not use religion, saffron robes and arms to seek votes ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.<\/p>\n
On Ram Navami \u2013 the day BJP and its allied organisations took out processions along with display of arms all over the state \u2013 Banerjee, at a public meeting in north Bengal\u2019s Siliguri advised her political opponents to not \u201csell religion\u201d. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaffron robes mean sacrifice and suffering. And to use the saffron robe to seek votes is shameful,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is saffron outside, but it\u2019s all black inside,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mamata Banerjee called for the unity of different religions \u2013 something she has been doing in most of her public, political meetings so far. Only, it became more significant on Ram Navami, when hundreds took to the streets led by the BJP and other right wing organisations with show of arms to celebrate the birth of Lord Rama.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe celebrate all religions,\u201d she said. \u201cDifferent religions are like different members of the same family,\u201d Banerjee added. \u201cThat has been the culture of Bengal.\u201d<\/p>\n
She led a blistering attack on the display of arms saying: \u201cI have heard that many took out gadaa<\/em> and swords to seek votes. Whose heads will you break with the gadaa<\/em>, whose heads will you cut off with the swords?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n Banerjee was also clear about her stand on seeking votes, apart from clearly establishing her party\u2019s position on religious unity.<\/p>\n She asked the electorate to not \u201cwaste\u201d their votes by voting for the Congress or the Left parties. \u201cThis is the national election, and Trinamool Congress will help form the government at the Centre. By voting for the Congress or the Left, you\u2019ll be wasting your votes because only the Trinamool Congress, with 42 seats from Bengal can help oust the BJP from the Centre,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Banerjee added that she had not fielded candidates from Kerala, where the Left was strong. \u201cSimilarly, there\u2019s no point of voting for the Left here because we are strong here,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you vote for the Left and the Congress, it will only help the BJP,\u201d Banerjee added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She asked the BJP to not “sell religion”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":5189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5184"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=5184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}