To ensure an auspicious start to the annual Shahid Divas (Martyrs’ Day) rally on July 21, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee conducted a khuti puja or ritual purification of a pole that would be used to build a podium from which Banerjee will make her speech. In West Bengal, every year, before the immersion of the idol of Durga, which ends the biggest festival in the state, part of the idol’s pandal is preserved and reused the following year after a small ceremony or khuti puja. The TMC’s annual mass rally on July 21 commemorates the 1993 Kolkata firing incident where 13 people were shot dead by the police during a political rally.
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