Political shake-up casts shadow over fate of big-budget Durga Pujas
Times of India | 5 July 2026
Kolkata: With less than 100 days left for Mahalaya, uncertainty hangs over several high-budget, crowd-puller Durga Pujas patronised by Trinamool Congress politicians, ministers, councillors or people close to former chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Most of them, including Sreebhumi Sporting, New Alipore Suruchi Sangha, Rajdanga Naba Udaya Sangha, Kendua Shanti Sangha, Dakshindari Youth, Dakshin Para Sarbojanin, 95 Pally, Barisha Club and Tala Prattoy, had budgets ranging from Rs 65 lakh to over Rs 1 crore.
At Tala Prattoy, the pandal superstructure built on part of Tala Park had to be dismantled after newly elected MLA Ritesh Tiwari questioned the alleged encroachment and demanded the arrest of chief organiser Dhrubajyoti Bose, also known as Suvo, alleging fund misappropriation.
At Suruchi Sangha, where the Biswas brothers — minister Aroop Biswas and his brother Swarup — held sway, the venue itself is uncertain after LIC informed the club that it would reclaim the plot where the puja was held. “We will hold an annual general meeting next Sunday to decide where and how a small-scale puja can be organised this year. Since the place where we used to hold the puja belongs to LIC and they want it back, we have made it clear that we will cooperate with them,” said Suruchi Sangha general secretary Kingshuk Maitra.
At Rajdanga in Kasba, where the puja had been taken over by ex-councillor Susanta Kumar Ghosh, now in police custody on extortion charges, no one is clear who will helm the event or fund it. A similar situation prevails at Kendua Shanti Sangha in Patuli, whose chief patron, councillor Bappaditya Dasgupta, is also in police custody on extortion charges.
Some pujas may scale down but do not face the same uncertainty. These include Chetla Agrani, whose president is the former mayor, and Hindustan Club, whose chief patron is ex-minister Chandrima Bhattacharya. Both have switched to the rebel camp, the former several weeks ago and the latter on Saturday.
Others, such as Ekdalia Evergreen and Singhi Park, have been politically connected for decades but are not seen as vulnerable to the change. Santosh Mitra Square, which had braved difficult years because its chief patron Sajal Ghosh was not aligned with the party in office, is expected to gain from the shift.
“All pujas will be held. Only, there will be less pomp among those that were closely associated with politicians. One of the reasons why they were able to flourish so much was because the association with powerful politicians allowed them to corner a lion’s share of the corporate advertising pie. That will not happen any more, which is good as more pujas will get a share of the corpus,” said theme artist Anirban Das.
Partho Ghosh, founder of Durga Puja organisers’ platform Forum for Durgotsav, agreed but said some pujas facing an existential crisis could recover. “Look at how Udayan Sangha has made a comeback,” he said, referring to the puja that stumbled after its chief patron, former education minister Partha Chatterjee, was arr.