People buy a flag depicting Lord Bera during the ‘ram navami’ festival in Nadia on March 26, 2026. | Photo credit: PTI
KOLKATA
With the parliamentary polls around the corner, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) took part in Ram Navami celebrations on Thursday (March 26, 2026) with rallies taking over Kolkata and Howrah that doubled as election campaign platforms. BJP supporters held pujas at top universities in the city, including Calcutta University and Jadavpur University.
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari led a Ram Navami rally dressed in orange and holding a flag in Bhawanipur, the home constituency of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, where she is contesting against the Trinamool chief.
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Mr Adhikari took to the streets of Bhawanipur on foot, holding his banner and calling for ‘Ram Rajya’ in West Bengal.
“We want jobs in our hands, food in our bellies, a roof over our heads, good governance and protection of women,” Mr. Adhikari said during the rally as he met voters on the route; a religious procession functioning as his election campaign.
On the other hand, ruling TMC leaders Kunal Ghosh and Madan Mitra also participated in separate Ram Navami programmes; both were proposed as candidates by the party.
Mr. Ghosh was seen leading a Ram Navami rally at Bidhan Sarani, while Mr. Mitra celebrated the festival at Dunlop in suburban Kolkata.
“This is not a Hindi Rashtra; people here have the freedom to celebrate any festival,” Mr Mitra said.
BJP also organized Ram Navami processions in different parts of Howrah. Party candidate Rudranil Ghosh held a rally in his Shibpur constituency.
Police and central forces were deployed in large numbers across the state to deal with any problems during the rally.
Ram Navami in Universities
Two prestigious universities in Kolkata, Calcutta University (CU) and Jadavpur University (JU) witnessed their own Ram Navami celebrations on Thursday.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, organized a Ram Navami puja inside the JU campus in South Kolkata and right outside the CU gate in North Kolkata.
Tension rose in JU when ABVP supporters raised Jai Shri Ram slogans inside the campus and organized two separate pujas inside the institute. A massive police presence was seen inside the campus.
Students of the college raised slogans against the ABVP and the rise of communal forces on campus.
On the other hand, the organizers of Ram Navami outside CU have promised to “create conditions to enable them to celebrate Ram Navami inside JU and CU for years to come”.
Published – 26 March 2026 20:20 IST
