What is the political significance of Mamata Banerjee's hiked Puja doles amid growing corruption row

Amid the financial crunch in Bengal and corruption charges against the ruling Trinamool Congress, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a hike in the Durga Puja doles. This step has several political significance. While the Durga Puja committees of Bengal ensure the political dominance of the ruling party, the Durga Puja also creates employment for many.

Under Mamata Banerjee, Durga Puja in Bengal has become more political than in the earlier times of the Left's rule. Right now, the Bharatiya Janata Party is the opposition party in Bengal. Despite being a political party with the ideology of Hindutva, it has not been able to capitalise on the Durga Puja festival. This way, Banerjee's push for Durga Puja, which has now received the recognition of UNESCO as an intangible heritage, is also a crucial step toward showing her party's Hindu identity.

The majority of the Durga Puja committees are based in Kolkata which is also the bastion of the TMC. The BJP understands that it would be next to impossible for them to breach this citadel of Banerjee. The politics, and involvement of the politicians with Durga Pujas and the Puja as the tool of showing strength have a long history in Bengal. Earlier, several Congress leaders used to be the patrons of many Durga Puja committees as the Left did not associate their names with the festivals directly. With time majority of these leaders shifted to the TMC and new leaders took over new Puja committees. This is how the dominance of the TMC is unparallel in Durga Puja.

The frustration of the BJP was visible in a statement by former Bengal party chief and national vice president Dilip Ghosh. In an interview with a Bengali news channel, Ghosh said, "The people of Kolkata, especially the erudite and the intellectual class are least bothered about corruption and the undemocratic regime of the TMC. They are happy with the dole politics of TMC. They are happy that they are getting Rs 500 from Lakhsmi Bhandar. The people of Kolkata love to remain in their world of make-believe that everything is in order.”

How Durga Puja became political under Mamata Banerjee?

The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress came to power in Bengal in 2011 by removing the 35-year rule of the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The TMC leadership in Kolkata took over a number of Durga Puja committees after winning the election. Most of the Durga Puja committees in Bengal and Kolkata today are directly supported by the ruling party.

Kolkata mayor and cabinet minister Firhad Hakim is the patron of the popular Chetla Agrani Durga Puja committee. Cabinet minister Sujit Bose sponsors the Durga Puja at Shribhumi Sporting and cabinet minister Chandrima Bhattacharya sponsors the Durga Puja committee at the Hindustan Club.

Notably, Partha Chatterjee, the suspended cabinet minister and TMC secretary general, is the patron of Kolkata's Naktala Udayan Sangha, one of the largest Durga Puja committees.

A senior journalist in Bengal who has been covering the TMC for decades said, on the condition of anonymity, " Durga Puja under the TMC is a big nexus. All these puja committees get massive financial backing from the corporate world in terms of advertisements. There is no rule to show the expenditure or there is no record of such. This is why puja committees have become a conduit for illegal financial transactions."

The Left did not provide grants to the puja committees, but Mamata Banerjee introduced this system in 2018. The state government provided Rs.10,000 each to all the 28,000 puja committees across Bengal. The grant amount increased to Rs 25,000 for clubs with more than 30,000 members the following year. Mamata Banerjee further increased the grant to 50,000 in 2020, which continued in 2021. This year, Mamata Banerjee announced a 20% hike in Durga Puja grants to the puja committees from 50,000 to 60,000. The TMC government also announced a 60% waiver on the electricity bill for these pujas.

How Mamata Banerjee has successfully kept BJP out of Durga Pujas?

The Bharatiya Janata party repeatedly accuses Mamata Banerjee of being pro-Muslim. From the 2021 Bengal assembly elections Banerjee has been deliberately working on her Hindu image. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) and its political advisory organisation I-PAC had meticulously devised a "soft Hindutva" agenda for Mamata Banerjee before the 2021 assembly election to reduce the perception of Banerjee's appeasement politics.

Banerjee had visited more than 25 temples in West Bengal during the Bengal assembly elections and performed pujas there. Before submitting her nomination to run in the next elections from the Nandigram constituency, she visited at least 19 temples and performed pujas there, compared to just one mosque. She visited Shiva temple, Kali temple and also temples of local gods and goddesses in the area and offered her prayers. Banerjee held Satya Narayan puja at her Kalighat residence shortly after the Election Commission announced the dates for the West Bengal Vidhan Sabha elections. These all were different from her brand of politics.

Right now after the repeated probes by the central agencies against several TMC leaders, the BJP has started to gain momentum. In such a situation Mamata Banerjee‘s hike in Pooja grants can be seen as a direct challenge to the BJP. despite being a Hindu nationalist political party the BJP could not enter into the politics of Durga Puja. Mamata Banerjee has successfully stopped the BJP by keeping all the Durga Puja committees under her control.

Why Durga Puja grants will create havoc to Bengal's economy and increase Center-State conflict?

Bengal has approximately 40,092 registered Durga pujas, and the increased puja grants will cost approximately Rs 240.55 crores.West Bengal is under massive debt and this massive expenditure will not do any good to the state. This is happening at a time when, despite the High Court order, the West Bengal government has failed to provide the pending DAs of the state government employees.

Recently, Mamata Banerjee met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked the Centre to clear the dues of the state government. MGNREGA, PM Awas Yojana, and PM Gramin Sadak Yojana funds are due from the Center, according to the state government.This amounts to around Rs 17,996 crore.

The political observers of Bengal believe that Mamata Banerjee's government is not in a position to bear this massive cost of Durga pujas. The majority of the populist schemes of the TMC government, like Kanyashree, Lakshmi Bhandar, and Shabuj Sathi, are direct cash transfer schemes. A recent RBI report has noted that the financial condition of the state is poor. While Mamata Banerjee blames the Centre for Bengal's poor economic situation, the reality is that populist measures like these will wreak havoc on the Bengal economy. Similarly, the centre will easily use this massive expenditure as a reason to delay the dues.

Why hiked Durga Puja doles is a strategy to divert the narrative from corruption?

From the school service commission recruitment scam to the cattle smuggling scam, the TMC government and its leaders are under the scrutiny of the central agencies. The enforcement directorate has already arrested suspended TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee, who used to be the second most powerful cabinet minister in Bengal. This month, the CBI arrested the TMC's Birbhum district president and strongman, Anubrata Mondal. The entire narrative of Bengal is right now against the TMC and the opposition parties are continuously attacking Banerjee over these scams.

In this situation, Mamata Banerjee needed a Brahmastra to shift attention from the popular narrative. Durga Puja is the biggest festival in Bengal, and in the days before and after the puja, people stay busy. This is why Durga Puja is the best way to divert people's attention. The TMC leaders believe that after the Durga Puja celebration,people will focus less on these controversies and the opposition will face trouble gaining the momentum to re-create this narrative against the TMC.