It’s going to rain holidays in West Bengal this year. With Assembly elections in the State scheduled for 2021, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, often accused by her adversaries of being partial to Muslims, has doubled the number of holidays given for several Hindu festivals.
As per the State Government’s 2020 calendar, notified last November and being widely circulated now as the year unfolds, the total number of public holidays in a year now stands at 43. If weekends too are excluded, then State government offices and schools and colleges will function only for 230 days this year.
The new list of holidays, greeted by the beneficiaries with delight as well as amusement, is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the work culture of West Bengal, where government departments, as it is, do not enjoy much of a reputation when it comes to promptness.
Half of October
The State will be practically shut for half of October this year, with as many as many as 11 consecutive days — compared to five so far — being declared as holidays for Durga Puja.
Saraswati Puja, another popular Bengali festival, will now see people being given a two-day holiday instead of one day. Likewise, the festivals of Chhat, celebrated by the Bihari population in the State, and Bhatridwitya, the Bengali equivalent of Raksha Bandhan, will now be marked with a holiday of not one but two days. Holi, too, will be celebrated with a two-day closure. An extra holiday will also be given for Id-ul-Fitr.
The festivals of Shivaratri and Janmashtami, more popular across north India, have also been notified as public holidays. In the hills of West Bengal, the birthday of poet Bhanu Bhakt has also been declared as holiday.
As per the State Government order, no substitute holiday(s) shall be allowed for any notified holiday(s) in case they coincide with a non-working day, but that should hardly be a reason for complain considering that the number of public holidays now add up to almost a month and a half.
BJP’s rise
The Bharatiya Janata Party, now openly pro-Hindu, has seen a spectacular rise in West Bengal in recent times, with the party winning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the State in the 2019 Parliamentary elections — something unimaginable until a few years ago. Ms. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress was ahead of it by only four seats.
She is now desperate to hold on to her Hindu supporters, who appear to be moving away from her, and has of late been announcing measures to demonstrate that she isn’t partial to Muslims. During last year’s Durga Puja, she had announced an aid of ₹10,000 to every Durga Puja organised in the State. Now comes the holiday bonanza as the countdown begins for the 2021 Assembly elections, which will see a direct contest between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP.
