Durga Puja pandal, PTI Photo
From demonetisation to fake doctors — Durga Puja organisers in the metropolis are leaving no stones unturned to showcase the recent happenings across the country and in West Bengal. And it has come with its fair share of controversy.
Organisers of one of the big ticket Durga Pujas of Kolkata, Mohammed Ali Park Puja committee, had planned their demon king Mahishasura’s clay model as a young man with a stethoscope and dressed in white apron taking money from patients and eventually slayed by the Goddess.
The model was complete and the organisers were upbeat about the divine dimension to the controversy.
But, the West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) and the Indian Medical Association’s (IMA) West Bengal chapter expressed their anguish at the demon king being modelled as a doctor, albeit fake.
WBMC chairman and Trinamool Congress MLA Dr Nirmal Majhi demanded an unconditional apology from the organisers, who have been organising the Durga Puja since 1969 on one of the busiest arterial roads of the city, Chittaranjan
Avenue.
“It was an attempt to malign the doctors of the state. It would have sent a wrong message and break people’s trust in physicians. We had approached the Kolkata Police and sought their intervention in removing the model,” said Dr Majhi.
And then came Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s intervention.