BH CORRESPONDENT, Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister, who has a fearsome reputation of taking fights onto the streets, has condemned the violent situation in Delhi which has claimed over 38 lives. But instead of shouting, sloganeering and slamming the culprits, she resorted to art to voice her opinions and concern.
In a poem titled Hell which was uploaded on her official Facebook page, she anguished over the loss of lives, compared the bloodshed to a holi of blood and the course that humanity is taking if it continues on this war-mongering trajectory.
She questioned whether this heralds the end of democracy as a peaceful country has turned violent and who will answer for all this?
The poem was published in Bengali, English and Hindi. The title Hell was written on a splotch of blood while the backdrop resembled fire and blood – unhidden references to the turmoil that parts of North-east Delhi is facing.
Though she refrained from making strong comments on the Delhi violence or blaming other political parties as she is wont to do, she did urge the people of Delhi to maintain peace.
Opposition parties Congress and CPI(M) and Congress said that due to a “tacit understanding between the BJP and the TMC”, the CM refrained from direct attacks. Sujan Chakraborty of CPI(M) said, “When all the political parties are demanding Amit Shah’s resignation, the TMC is maintaining a stoic silence.”
However, the Bengali film fraternity did not hesitate to boldly condemn the attacks and violence in Delhi, and they could not bear to see lives suffer, people die and the country’s capital burn.
Later, Banerjee wrote a shorter poem with a question mark serving as the title. There, she spoke about a “he” who came, spoke and left, while “my motherland kept on burning”. Though she left it ambiguous, it could be seen as a reference towards US President Donald Trump who visited India on February 24 and 25, while the violence erupted in North-east Delhi. She ended the poem with the words, “The death toll kept mounting”.
