As the Durga Puja festivities in West Bengal came to a close and the immersion of idols began on October 21, Wednesday, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari announced that only Sanatanis would be allowed to participate in the process.

“Only people who follow Sanatana Dharma will participate. I have told the commissioner of police to note down the names and identity details of the people who will carry the idols. There is nothing communal in this,” Adhikari had told the media while inspecting the immersion arrangements at Babughat on Bijoya Dashami.

‘Additional Safety Measures’

Adhikari was accompanied by Kolkata police commissioner Ajay Kumar Nand and municipal commissioner Smita Pandey ahead of the idol immersion. “There are arrangements every year…But this year they are more beautiful, so on one side there is safety and on the other side the purity and faith of Maa’s idol (is maintained)…Before, people had a problem with cranes, so we have introduced trolleys this time,” Adhikari added.

Delineating the additional safety measures employed in the process this year, Adhikari said that along with the state government and Kolkata Police, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are involved in the immersion arrangements.

According to a PTI report published in The Telegraph, Adhikari also stated that at least 200 country boats were expected to carry spectators travelling in the Ichamati River at Taki in North 24 Parganas.

The government will reportedly provide life jackets and weight-balancing measures. Adhikari expressed concern over their safety due to the precariousness of the country boats. The Border Security Force (BSF) has been roped in to assist at Taki, alongside a cabinet minister and the deputy inspector general of police of the Barasat range, the report mentioned.

Further, the chief minister reviewed the arrangements along the ghats of the Howrah side of the Hooghly river, while on a boat.

Festival Marred by Stampede, Bulldozer Action

While this was the first Durga Puja held under the administration of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which clinched power in the state earlier this year, the festival was marred by a deadly stampede and instances of bookstalls being bulldozed.

Adhikari’s immersion statement came on the heels of a stampede at the Chorbagan Sarbojanin Durga Puja pandal that reportedly killed at least 19 people and injured several on October 17. Notably, Adhikari’s nephew, Debdeep Adhikari, was associated with the Chorebagan puja as its chief patron, and Adhikari himself inaugurated the pandal, praising it as a Sanatani puja.

Alt News had earlier reported that on the same day, Kolkata Police, CAPF personnel and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation launched a drive against bookstalls set up by Left parties including CPI(M), AISA, SUCI(C), and APDR near Jadavpur’s 8B bus stand. Despite locals and Left workers protesting the action, by forming human chains and standing in front of the JCB earthmover through the night, the state machinery succeeded in bringing down certain bookstalls and damaging others.

ALSO READ: Demolition of book stalls continues in Bengal: Locals resist bulldozer in night-long standoff in Jadavpur

While the term ‘Sanatani’ has featured in abudance by the Right-wing BJP government in the puja preparations this year, in September, Adhikari urged Durga Puja committees to deny the CPI(M) space for bookstalls if the party used the term “Sharodotsav”, or autumn festival, instead of Durga Puja. He alleged the term was part of a concerted attempt to dilute the festival’s religious character and impose communist culture. Two days later, he reiterated the stance while inaugurating a Ganesh Puja pandal in Keshtopur, a northern suburb of Kolkata.