OH MAA, NOT AGAIN!
Following an advertisement which splashed a Kolkata flyover, incidentally named MAA In Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh “Development” advertisement and the subsequent widespread reaction all over the cyber world, FPJ presents a list of gaffes and faux pas by BJP leaders in the recent past on West Bengal and its luminaries...
MAY 17, 2019
BJP’S West Bengal unit President Dilip Ghosh had said Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar had written Sahaj Path which came as a shocker to people across the state as Sahaj Path, a very popular primer, was written by Tagore for children. Vidyasagar had written Barna Parichay to introduce Bengali alphabets to children.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2019
BJP MP and then Union minister Babul Supriyo wrongly credited Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar with abolishing Sati. It was actually Raja Ram Mohan Roy who fought against the practice.
DECEMBER 10, 2020
The Bengal BJP unit’s official Twitter handle tweeted in Bengali “Visva-Bharati is Rabindranath Tagore’s birthplace”. Worse, it was attributed to the visiting BJP national President, Jagat Prakash Nadda, who traces his roots to Himachal but spent his childhood close to West Bengal in Patna, Bihar.
AUGUST 15, 2021
PM Modi referred to Matangini Hazra as a freedom fighter from Assam, committing the latest gaffe by a BJP leader relating to a Bengal icon. Modi referred to “the courage of Matangini Hazra in Assam” while reeling off a list of freedom fighters during his I-Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort.
After a full-page advertisement carried in a national English daily showcasing the industrialisation and development of Uttar Pradesh under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth featured a photograph of Kolkata’s Maa flyover, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra lashed out at him. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, who is also in charge of Uttar Pradesh, tweeted, “They give fake advertisement, fake jobs of lekhpal were offered to youths, now giving fake pictures of flyover and factories and claiming fake development. Neither they have any understanding of the people’s issues nor have they anything to do with it. The government is of fake advertisement and false claims.”