The West Bengal Government on January 15 claimed that pilgrims visiting the Ganga Sagar Mela this year have surpassed all the previous records with about one crore pilgrims visiting the Sagar Island till 3 p.m. on January 15.
“This is the highest-ever gathering for any mela in the country. By 3 p.m. on January 15 about one crore pilgrims had visited the island,” said Arup Biswas, Minister of State for Power, Sports and Youth Affairs and Housing in the West Bengal government.
The Minister said that the last year in 2023, the number of pilgrims visiting the island was about 80 lakh and because of improved arrangements the figures have touched one crore this year.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 11, 2024, had said that “almost one crore pilgrims had visited the Ganga Sagar Mela and this year it is likely to surpass the number”.
Lakhs of people visit Sagar island to take a dip at the confluence of river Ganga with the Bay of Bengal on the occasion of Makar Sankranti.
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The claims of one crore pilgrims arriving on Sagar Island with a population of about 2.13 lakh in seven days from January 8 to January 15 do not have many takers not only among the political parties in the Opposition but also among political observers.
Sagar Island located in the southernmost part of West Bengal, about 120 km from Kolkata has an area of about 280 sq km. The State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership had described the figures as “statistical jugglery”.
Professor of Political Science at Rabindra Bharati University Biswanath Chakraborty said that the Trinamool Congress Government’s claims of one crore pilgrims attending the Ganga Sagar Mela is part of its politics where the party is championing the cause of Hinduism and dubbing the BJP as ‘pseudo-Hindu”.
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“The Ganga Sagar Mela is being held before the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22 and thus the Trinamool Congress wants to use the success of the event for political mileage for the Lok Sabha polls,” Prof. Chakraborty said. The academic added that he does not believe that the island located at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal can sustain one crore people in only a few days.
Meanwhile, seven Ministers of the West Bengal Government took stock of the arrangements at Sagar Island as thousands of people took a dip at the confluence of river Ganga and the sea on the occasion of Makar Sankranti. The timing of the holy dip was from 00.13 hours on January 15 to 00.13 hours on January 16.
There was a dense fog around Sagar Island in the early hours of January 15 which had affected the movement of vessels. State’s Transport Minister Snehasish Chakraborty said that about 400 anti-fog lights have been installed by the State transport department so that vessels can cross seamlessly from the mainland to the island. About 3,500 buses have been pressed into service for carrying pilgrims. The Minister added that vehicles will be made available to pilgrims returning from Ganga Sagar and vehicles will be provided to visit Kalighat and Dakhineshwar.
Despite elaborate arrangements and the deployment of 14,000 police personnel, theft continued to pose a problem for the pilgrims. Minister Arup Biswas said that about 341 incidents of pick-pocketing were reported out of which 322 people got their belongings back. About 750 persons were arrested for different incidents, the Minister said.
Senior Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had predicted that the crowd of pilgrims this year would be more than in previous years. He added that the number of camps for pilgrims in Kolkata was increased this year. The Ministers also claimed that pilgrims visiting the island were so happy that they shouted slogans in support of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The West Bengal Government Ministers once again raised the demand that Ganga Sagar Mela be accorded the ‘National Mela’ status. “This is the number one mela in the country and if this mela is not accorded National Mela status then which mela will be. We want to raise the question to the Centre and the Prime Minister,” they told journalists.
