Durga Puja draws the maximum number of people to the pandals in West Bengal and both the ruling and the opposition parties are figuring out ways to attract voters.
Like other years, political parties have set up stalls to sell books espousing their ideologies and to connect with the people.
BJP, which has been trying to place itself as the main opposition to ruling TMC, has this time decided to come up with stalls outside Puja pandals across the state.
"This time we have decided to set up stalls outside all the Puja pandals. These book stalls will be used as platforms for connecting with the masses. Also to spread the message about the developmental work done by our party's government at the Centre," state BJP president Dilip Ghosh told PTI.
The party has also decided that its district leaders who are engaged in organizing community pujas will recite Sanskrit shlokas from the pandals, he said.
The CPI(M), which was earlier averse to taking part in religious festivals, is now banking on a "social festival" like Durga Puja to reach out to the people and revamp its dwindling mass base in West Bengal.
The party has allowed its MLAs to take part in inaugural programmes of Durga Puja and giving stress to setting up stalls of its mouthpiece 'Ganashakti' outside the pandals as it faces a tough time in the state in coping with the ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition BJP.
Earlier, the participation of CPI(M) and its cadres was limited to sitting at the hundreds of party books stalls outside puja pandals across the state and sell Left literature - even works of Lenin, Stalin and Karl Marx.
Durga Puja was used a platform by the Left to popularize Marxist literature and spread the ideology.
The ruling Trinamool Congress on the other hand appears to have stolen the march as most of the community Durga Pujas in Bengal, including some of the biggest ones, are organized by TMC leaders and ministers.
It too has set up stalls of TMC party mouthpiece 'Jago Bangla' outside the puja pandals and like the other parties its workers are working overtime during the festive season to spread the message about the state government's developmental work.
PTI
