Mamata's TMC moves to steal BJP's Hindutva card with a new Lord Jagannatha temple

Kolkata: Come April 30, and the Trinamool Congress government will put up giant TV screens in all blocks across West Bengal and stream live the inauguration of a grandiose temple of Lord Jagannatha at Digha, a seaside town in the Purba Medinipur district of the state, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leading the show.

With the assembly elections in West Bengal just a little over a year away, the ruling Trinamool Congress is taking a leaf out of the Ram Mandir playbook of its principal challenger, Bharatiya Janata Party, itself.

Mamata Banerjee’s party and the government are now all set to hype up the inauguration of the Rs 250 crore temple of Lord Jagannatha in Digha.

The consecration of the temple will take place on April 29 – a day before the chief minister will lead its grand inauguration in the presence of representatives of the ISKCON and the leaders of several religious institutions of West Bengal and other states. The chief servitor of the Lord Jagannatha temple of Puri in Odisha is also likely to be present.

The temple is at the centre of the Jagannath Dham Cultural Centre, which is being built over an area of 20 acres in Digha. A 27-member trust, headed by the chief secretary of the state government, will take over the management of the temple. The trust will include the representatives of ISKCON, Ramakrishna Mission and other religious organisations of the state.

The TMC is going gaga over the “new spiritual landmark by the sea”, saying that the shrine is “a perfect blend of divinity and serenity” and “will not only be a place of worship but also a breathtaking destination for travellers seeking peace and blessings”.

The party’s top brass hopes that the grand inauguration of the temple will not only blunt the BJP’s aggressive Hindutva campaign in West Bengal but also blunt the saffron party’s allegations about appeasement of Muslims by Banerjee, who, however, also started providing government assistance to the organisations holding Durga Puja – the biggest annual festival of West Bengal.

The chief minister, who publicly worships Goddess Kali at her home annually, also participated in a couple of cultural events on the occasion of Holi, known as Dol Utsav in West Bengal, on Wednesday and Thursday.

The BJP is not ready to let the TMC take the steam out of what is expected to be the saffron party’s main campaign pitch in the next assembly elections, expected to take place in April and May 2026.

The state BJP heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, demanded that the TMC government must bar the entry of non-Hindus to the new temple in Digha if it wanted to buttress its claim that it was modelled after the Lord Jagannatha’s shrine in Puri.

He also demanded that its name in the official documents should be changed from Jagannath Dham Cultural Centre to Jagannath Temple in official documents.

“Mamata Banerjee is under pressure due to the situation in Bangladesh situation and that's why she is trying to present the Jagannath Dham Sanskriti Kendra as Jagannath Temple to placate West Bengal’s Hindu voters, who are distancing themselves from the TMC due to its soft stance on the atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh and the balancing act of appeasement politics,” said Adhikari, who recently stirred a controversy with his statements, declaring himself as an MLA for Hindus or saying that the TMC’s Muslim MLAs would be thrown out after the BJP’s ascent to power in the state.

Banerjee, however, invoked the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda to insist that Hinduism preached tolerance. She accused Adhikari of importing a fake Hindutva to West Bengal.