West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party for questioning her religion and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah to compete with her in chanting mantras, or hymns, PTI reported.
“Worship does not mean only putting a ‘tilak’ on the forehead. One must understand the meaning of the mantras,” she said at a programme in Kolkata. “I challenge Modi-Shah to compete with me in chanting mantras.”
Mamata said she did not need lectures from those questioning her religion. “I want to say that my religion is humanity,” she said, adding that her government had renovated many temples in West Bengal.
“They try to point fingers at me and say I do not allow puja to be conducted in Bengal,” said the Trinamool Congress chief. “They should go and see how many ‘mandir’ [temples] have been constructed during the TMC regime.”
The BJP in the past has accused Banerjee of following the politics of minority appeasement.
Banerjee accused the BJP of taking part in political rhetoric over the Ram temple issue in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. “We do not believe in the religion of hatred, we believe in humanism,” she said. “They only engage in political rhetoric over Ram mandir before elections.”
Voting for the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.
Banerjee said she believed in playing Holi with colours and with a pure mind “unlike a section who believes in playing Holi with the blood of others”. “I do not need to learn the true meaning of communal harmony from a divisive force like the BJP,” she added.
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