New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated Thursday she was “shocked once more” after Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to Nineteenth-century mystic Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa as “Swami” whereas marking his start anniversary.

Forward of meeting elections in Bengal, Banerjee accused the PM of “cultural insensitivity” in the direction of Bengal’s religious icons and sharpened the Trinamool Congress’s pitch that the BJP doesn’t perceive the state’s ethos.

“But once more, our Prime Minister aggressively shows his cultural insensitivity to nice figures of Bengal. In the present day is the janmatithi of Yugavatara (God’s incarnation in our age) Sri Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsadeva. Whereas making an attempt to hail the good saint on this event, our PM added an unprecedented and improper prefix to the good saint’s title, ‘Swami’!” she wrote on X.

“As is well-known, Sri Ramakrishna was extensively revered as Thakur (actually, God),” she added.

Banerjee additionally urged Modi to cease redefining Bengal’s Renaissance figures. “I urge the Prime Minister kindly to not uncover new prefixes and suffixes for the good Renaissance figures of Bengal who formed trendy India,” she wrote.

TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray strengthened the assault, pointing to Ramakrishna’s pluralist legacy as a rebuke to the BJP. “Sri Sri Paramahansa Dev was the priest of Maa Bhavatarini Devi at Dakshineswar. He additionally used to go to Church buildings and Masjid in the hunt for the divine, to pronounce invaluable message of humanity — ‘As many religions, so many paths’. Does PM or his occasion consider this?” Ray posted on X.

Reacting to the criticism, BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul stated calling the mystic ‘swami’ was not disrespectful.

“All day lengthy, from morning to nighttime, Mamata Banerjee, her spokespersons, and her occasion unfold negativity,” Paul informed information company IANS.

BJP’s Amit Malviya additionally wrote on X that use of the phrase ‘swami’ was supposed as “mark of respect”, and never a proper designation throughout the Ramakrishna Order.

The episode is the newest in a sequence of cultural flashpoints the TMC has used to border the BJP as an outsider pressure trying to applicable Bengal’s icons — a story that serves Banerjee’s long-cultivated positioning as custodian of Bengali satisfaction and sub-national identification.

The same controversy had erupted when Modi referred to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as “Bankim Chandra Chatterjee” and, on a separate event, as “Bankim da” — a formulation critics stated departed from established conference. The BJP dismissed that criticism as political nitpicking even because the TMC amplified it as proof of what it characterises because the occasion’s superficial engagement with Bengali historical past.

Additionally Learn: Bengal I-PAC raid: ED defends its Article 32 writ in SC as ‘guardian of residents’ basic rights’