West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called for an all-party meeting at the State Secretariat on August 29 to discuss a new date for ’Statehood Day’.
Sources in the government said that the meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. on August 29 at Nabanna Sabhaghar. The development assumes political significance as earlier, on June 20 this year, Governor C.V. Ananda Bose went ahead with his plans to observe the ‘State Foundation Day’ despite the Chief Minister expressing her strong reservation against such a commemoration.
Ms. Banerjee said in her letter of June 19 that the people of the State had never “rejoiced over, or commemorated, or celebrated” any day as the Foundation Day of West Bengal, and rather have seen the Partition as a result of the unleashing of communal forces that could not be resisted at that point of time.
On June 20, 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly held a meeting to decide if the Bengal Presidency would stay with India or Pakistan, or be divided, having the Hindu majority districts staying with India as West Bengal, and the Muslim majority areas forming East Pakistan. After hours of debate, the Bengal Legislative Council and the Bengal Legislative Assembly voted for the Partition of Bengal along religious lines into two separate entities, the Hindu majority districts became part of West Bengal and Muslim majority districts became part of East Pakistan.
While there has been no precedence of the West Bengal Government observing the ‘State Foundation Day’, before June 20, 2023, the State unit of the BJP had been observing the ‘Paschimbanga Dibas’ (‘West Bengal Day’) for the past few years, paying homage to the late Jan Sangh founder and member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly, Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
Representatives of all the major political parties in the State will be asked to attend the meeting and come up with an alternative date to observe West Bengal’s Statehood. At the time of writing, no political party in the Opposition had confirmed participation in the all-party meeting.