Kolkata, Dec 9 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, on Tuesday launched a scathing attack against the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, over the latter’s inadvertent reference to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Vande Mataram’s composer and legendary Bengali poet, as “Bankim Da” during his speech on the floor of the Parliament.

Although the Prime Minister immediately amended his words and said he would henceforth address Chattopadhyay as “Bankim Babu”, the Chief Minister continued with her attack against the Prime Minister on this issue while addressing an anti-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rally at Cooch Behar on Tuesday.

“Referring to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as ‘Bankim-Da’ is never acceptable. It sounds like referring to any casual acquaintance like ‘Shyam-Da’ or ‘Hari-da’. The countrymen will not tolerate such an insult to someone who penned the National Song of the country. He should apologise. Even then, his error will be unpardonable. He has insulted the culture and history of the country,” the Chief Minister said.

She also accused the BJP of frequently insulting iconic Bengali personalities like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Khudiram Basu and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, among others.

This is the second consecutive day that the Chief Minister attacked the Prime Minister on the “Bankim-Da” issue.

On Monday, before leaving for Cooch Behar, she told media persons at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport that it was Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore who identified the portion of Vande Mataram for the National Song.

“BJP had objections even to that. They have objections to everything. At times they oppose Gurudev, and at times they oppose Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose,” the Chief Minister said on Monday.

The “Bankim-Da” controversy has given the Chief Minister and Mamata Banerjee to sharpen their old accusations against the BJP of being anti-Bengali.

Since Monday, several Trinamool Congress leaders have already started claiming the Prime Minister’s “Bankim-Da” remarks reflect the typical anti-Bengali mindsets of the BJP leaders.

On Monday, PM Modi, while commemorating the 150th year of Vande Mataram in the Lok Sabha, launched a sharp attack on the Congress, alleging that the party once fractured the national song under pressure from the Muslim League and “knelt before them”.

He said, “Today, as we celebrate 150 years of Vande Mataram, we must tell new generations the truth — that Congress once split this hymn, succumbing to the pressure of the Muslim League and its everlasting appeasement policy. This should never be allowed to happen again,” PM Modi declared, urging Parliament to restore pride in the song that once united the nation against colonial rule.”

–IANS

src/dan