Political slugfest erupts over renaming of Kolkata’s iconic Sealdah station

Kolkata, Aug 11 A fresh political tussle has broken out between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the proposed renaming of Kolkata’s iconic Sealdah Railway Station.

While the Trinamool Congress wants the Sealdah station to be renamed after Swami Vivekananda, the West Bengal unit of the BJP wants it to be renamed after Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

Both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress have their own logic. According to BJP former state president in West Bengal and Union Minister of State, Dr Sukanta Majumdar, Sealdah station was denied the main transit point status for the Hindu refugees during the partition of undivided India.

“The man responsible for ensuring the proper livelihood of these Hindu refugees was Syama Prasad Mukherjee. So, in his memory as well as keeping in mind the significance of Sealdah station for the transit of refugees, the station should be named after him,” Majumdar said.

However, Trinamool Congress state general secretary, Kunal Ghosh, has rejected Majumdar’s logic. According to him, there is a port in West Bengal that is already named after Syama Prasad Mukherjee. There is no necessity for a station to be named after him.

“Rather, Sealdah has a direct link with Swami Vivekananda. After delivering his iconic speech at a religious conference in Chicago in the USA, he came to Sealdah station. So there is a direct link between him and the station. So the station should be named after him," Ghosh said.

However, Majumdar admitted that naming Sealdah station after Syama Prasad Mukhopadhyay would not be easy, as the name change of any railway station in any state required the concurrence of the state government concerned.

“The station's name will be changed following the recommendation of the state government concerned. So I will request the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, that her government sends the proposal for renaming the station after Syama Prasad Mukherjee,” Majumdar said.

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