Adhikari’s intervention has turned what began as a dispute over a preacher’s comments on food and religious practice into a broader political confrontation with the Congress.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress president Shubhankar Sarkar accused the BJP of trying to intimidate people exercising their democratic right to protest. “The Indian National Congress has never been — and never will be — suppressed by threats,” Sarkar said.
He warned that Congress workers would not retreat. “Since its inception, the Indian National Congress has never bowed down to injustice,” he said, adding that the party’s history had been built through “protest, resistance and struggle”.
The BJP, however, has faced an awkward contradiction over the issue. Its state president Samik Bhattacharya has himself rejected Shastri’s prescription on food, asking, “How can Bengalis not have fish and meat?” He argued that no visiting religious figure could decide what Bengalis should eat.
Ministers Dilip Ghosh and Agnimitra Paul have similarly stressed Bengal’s own traditions, including consumption of fish and meat during Durga Puja.
The Congress has seized on Adhikari’s decision to target the protesters, seeking to frame the controversy as something bigger than : whether a BJP government will protect dissent when a religious figure’s remarks offend Bengal’s cultural sensibilities.
Sarkar has promised to raise the pressure further. “In the police stations where FIRs have not yet been filed, I myself will return from Delhi to Kolkata, organise the programme of filing FIRs in every police station and lead this protest in person,” he said.
Congress leader Debesh Chakraborty also condemned Shastri’s remarks, saying no outsider had the right to insult Bengal’s “thousand-year-old history, culture and dietary habits”. He said the comments had “hurt the self-respect of the Bengali nation” and demanded immediate legal action and an apology.
Chakraborty warned that if action was not taken, the Congress would launch a larger movement, arguing that people across political lines had joined the protests to defend Bengal’s cultural identity.
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