Mamata Banerjee is set to emerge victorious in the Bhawanipore by-poll elections as trends show the Chief Minister of West Bengal in pole position to win. With results in her favour, celebrations have erupted with leaders and supporters dancing and making merry in the streets.
The intriguing aspect of the matter is that the celebrations come days after the West Bengal informed the Calcutta High Court that it had no problems with banning visitors from entering pandals. Consequently, the High Court again imposed restrictions that banned visitors from entering the pandal.
Thus, while citizens are banned from celebrating their festivals as they see fit, politicians are out in the street, without masks, flouting all sorts of rules they want others to follow.
https://twitter.com/Plchakraborty/status/1444562810374078464?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwSome of the celebrations are quite extravagant, with impromptu jigs and all that. It’s unlikely that any Court will take any action against such antics.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1444550294935785480?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwNonetheless, the Trinamool Congress has demonstrated perfectly why the restrictions on Durga Puja and other Hindu festivals are so crazy and have nothing to do with Covid-19. It is not just West Bengal where such restrictions have been imposed.
Mumbai, Odisha and multiple other states have selectively targeted Hindu festivals in the name of Covid-19 while allowing crowds to congregate for protests, election rallies and other such reasons. Authorities appear to believe that only Hindu festivals spread Covid-19 while other mass gatherings suffer from no such menace.
The celebrations in Bengal after the entry of visitors in Puja pandals are a slap on the face of the fundamental right to observe one’s religious faith and only further cements the fact that the restrictions that have been imposed in recent times have nothing to do with Covid-19 at all.