Maintaining that Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee's death in incarceration in Jammu and Kashmir in 1953 is shrouded in mystery, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday said they regard his death as a "conspiratorial murder."
He said that Mookerjee's clarion call for "Ek desh mein do Vidhan, do Pradhan aur Do Nishan nahi chalenge" (A country cannot have two constitutions, two prime ministers, and two national emblems) led to his untimely death.
Jammu and Kashmir had been accorded special status under Article 370 of the Constitution and had its own constitution, flag, and administrative autonomy. In August, 2019, the Narendra Modi government revoked that special status.
Adhikari said that Mookerjee's death in a Srinagar jail on this day in 1953 is shrouded in mystery, after being arrested for entering Jammu and Kashmir without a permit. "We regard his death as a conspiratorial murder," the chief minister said while speaking at a blood donation camp organised on the occasion of Mookerjee's death anniversary.
Adhikari said this is a day to pledge service to the nation for which Mookerjee laid down his life. "We Bengalis are always indebted to him over generations for leading the way for West Bengal's induction into India in August 1947 to provide a homeland for us," he said.
Adhikari said Mookerjee had earlier in April 1947 got a resolution passed at a Hindu Mahasammelan (convention) in Tarakeswar for the western districts of undivided Bengal to remain within India.
"This government will function with his ideals in mind and take forward the path he showed," the chief minister of the newly-formed BJP dispensation in West Bengal said. "The current government will work to spread the history of West Bengal's creation among students," he said.
The chief minister said that the "bhumi pujan" for setting up a 125-foot-high statue of Syama Prasad Mookerjee will be held on his 125th birth anniversary on July 6.
"The state will declare a holiday on July 6 as a mark of respect to him," he said, adding that a memorial and a library would be built at his paternal home in Hooghly district's Jeerut, for which the finance minister made provisions in the state budget placed in the Assembly on Monday.
Earlier, Adhikari paid homage to Mookerjee on his death anniversary by paying floral tributes at his bust at Keoratala crematorium in south Kolkata. The CM was accompanied by Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta and Industries Minister Tapas Roy.
West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya also paid floral tributes at the bust of Mookerjee here.
Speaking at the blood donation camp at Hazra crossing after paying floral tributes at the crematorium, the chief minister said this is the first time that the Information and Cultural department and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation have jointly observed the departed leader's "Atmabalidan Divas" on his death anniversary.
He said that Paschimbanga Divas (West Bengal Day) was celebrated on June 20 in remembrance of the importance of the day in 1947 which, he claimed, had been kept a secret from the present generation.
"The 34-year rule of the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the subsequent corrupt dispensation that was at the helm in the state had kept the contributions of Mookerjee and Bharat Sevasram Sangha founder Swami Pranabananda hidden from the people," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)