When Devi Durga arrives with her family in West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s neighbourhood this October, they will be welcomed by javelin champion Neeraj Chopra. Well, a version of him.
After the grand success of the “Khela Hobe” (Game On) theme in the April-May assembly elections for the Trinamool Congress and the CM even creating a day out of it, now the biggest festival of Bengalis is set to be suffused by the political phenomenon. And the Durga Puja committee in Mamata’s Bhawanipur locality in Kolkata has decided to give its pandal a Khela Hobe touch. Football and cricket matches will be screened live while sports-themed images and objects will be seen all over.
The organisers say they are also creating a model of Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra with his javelin to welcome the goddess.
“Didi (Mamata) stays in our locality. She has coined the slogan Khela Hobe. We, therefore, plan to use the spirit of this slogan through models. You will see East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, all in our pandal,” said organiser Subhankar Roy Choudhury, general secretary Bhowanipur Durgotsab Samity.
The Khela Hobe slogan was used extensively by TMC in its campaign for the assembly elections that the party decisively won. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee later announced that August 16 will be marked as Khela Hobe Diwas to pay respect to sixteen football fans who died in a stampede during a match on this day in 1980 at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens stadium. Several sports tournaments were organised in West Bengal and other parts of the country while footballs were distributed primarily among children from underprivileged families. Mamata also emphasised that Khela Hobe will now go national, as her party is looking to spread its influence in other states ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls.
The TMC chief inaugurates many pandals during the festival every year. The organisers feel this time too she will inaugurate the Khela Hobe-themed puja herself.
President of the Bhawanipur club Sandip Bakshi said, “It’s a great idea that will be projected here. The way Didi fought in a wheelchair (after getting injured during poll campaigning) and made this slogan famous, as local people we are paying tribute to her. This is Mamata Banerjee’s home and so we have planned this.”
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