MAMATA'S HINDU AVATAR

Competitive Hinduism comes to rule in West Bengal, as Mamata Banerjee seeks to negate the BJP's USP—and maybe wash off old sins—with a new Jagannath temple

- Arkamoy Datta Majumdar

IN WINDSWEPT DIGHA, beneath the searing April sun, there stood Mamata Banerjee with folded hands. Climbing the 210-foot-tall spire with the sacred flag, for the final act of a long-awaited consecration, were two servitors from Puri. Their presence conferred sanctity upon this shiny new epigone of the Jagannath temple. A day later, April 30, the public would stream in, some 200,000 of them, rising to 500,000 the next day. But today, West Bengal's chief minister was a deity unto herself. Playing yajaman with gravitas, the role enacted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Ayodhya, ensuring she was the cynosure of all eyes.