BJP committee considers renaming Kolkata roads after Durga Puja
Big changes could be coming to Kolkata's street names.
A committee set up by West Bengal's BJP government is mulling proposals to rename major roads like Lenin Sarani, Karl Marx Sarani, and Ho Chi Minh Sarani after Durga Puja this October.
Committee member and senior BJP leader Tathagata Roy suggested honoring Bengali poets such as Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Rangalal Bandyopadhyay and mathematician and former Bharatiya Jana Sangh president Debaprasad Ghosh instead.
TMC and CPI(M) oppose Kolkata renaming
The proposal has sparked pushback from TMC and CPI(M), with TMC calling it "vendetta politics" and CPI(M) saying it will certainly object.
TMC's Kunal Ghosh said, "If they try to change the name of Lenin Sarani, it will not merely be about Comrade Lenin. Such an attitude will show that they are in no way willing to show tolerance or respect toward distinguished people who hold different beliefs, subscribe to different philosophies or have different ways of thinking."
The committee also floated ideas for renaming some metro stations and proposing names of Qazi Abdul Wadud, Begum Rokeya and S Wajed Ali for the Titumir-named bus stand in Barasat.
All these suggestions will be sent to the state Assembly after the Pujas, marking a possible shift in Kolkata's cultural landscape.