Between Azaan And Ashtami

As Mamata vigorously accepts the BJPs communal challenge in Bengal, she falls afoul of her old allies.

- Rajat Roy in Calcutta

Taha Siddiqui, Pirzada of Furf­ura Sharif, Hooghly, a leading conservative Muslim voice in West Bengal, is angry with Mam­ata Banerjee’s Trinamool Cong­ress government. He has voiced his disenchantment in public, saying archly that Mamata must not take Muslim voters for granted, knowing that the TMC can ill afford to ignore discontent within the community that comprise 28 per cent of the state’s elec­torate, that too months before Lok Sab­ ha elections, wherein Muslim voters’ support is crucial for the TMC to thwart the growing threat of the BJP. At a protest rally in Calcutta, Siddiqui said the TMC was as adept in commu­nal politics as the BJP.

The immediate ‘provocation’ was a rec­ ent decision made by the government to give a Rs 10,000 grant each to all the community Durga Puja committees this year. For 28,000 such pujas across Bengal, the total expenditure from the exchequer would be Rs 28 crore. Openly questioning Mamata’s secular credentials, he said the government should not sponsor any par­ticular festival. And if so, such grants should be given to other religious festivals too. Whether the government’s use of state funds violates India’s secular frame­ work is now being debated in Calcutta High Court, after a PIL was filed against the rationale of such a decision.