The BJP in West Bengal will celebrate 150 years of Vande Mataram today with the state party leadership leading a rally in Chinsurah in Hooghly district. Notably, the TMC government on Thursday ordered all state-run and state-aided schools to include ‘Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol’, penned by Rabindranath Tagore and earlier declared as the state anthem, in the morning prayers from now on, along with the national anthem.

Except for the National Anthem, there was no specified prayer song earlier in the state.

The inauguration of the 31st edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), which was attended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, also witnessed the rendition of the state anthem.

The 11th edition of India’s premier Bengali literary festival,   Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob (ABSU), curated by Oxford Bookstores, will begin today at the iconic century-old Oxford Bookstore, Park Street. The three-day literary event promises to bring together luminaries from the world of Bengali literature, art and culture.

The visiting Election Commission (EC) team is scheduled to visit Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri today to review the roll out of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll process.

Led by a Deputy Election Commissioner, the team is likely to wrap the visit on Saturday.

Meanwhile, over 2.01 crore enumeration forms have so far been distributed in the state till Thursday, said the EC.