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A day after the Ayodhya verdict, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continues to maintain a stoic silence on the matter.
Normally among the first to take to Twitter on all issues, Banerjee has avoided making any comment directly on the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram janambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.
All that the Bengal Chief Minister has done is pen a cryptic poem, which some are inferring to be a veiled reference to the verdict. The poem, entitled ‘Unspoken’ (Na Bola), was uploaded on her Facebook account at 7:52 PM on Saturday, a few hours after the Ayodhya verdict.
Golden Silence
‘Unspoken,’ Banerjee's poem, speaks of a person suffering without opening up about the pain. A literal translation means that sometimes silence is golden and words are silver. And, at times, silence is a much stronger response.
Banerjee, in her poem, says that one understands the value of food only when one goes hungry; one values sleep only when one is deprived of sleep and so on. She adds that if people cannot express their feelings, they keep adding up and often lead to mental anxiety. The pain of such unspoken words remains forever.
The poem, however, has not been posted on her Twitter feed. Since Sunday morning, Banerjee has continued to tweet on various issues such as the birth anniversary of Surendranath Banerjea, World Immunisation Day and so on. But there are no tweets on Ayodhya.
Political Implications
Political observers, however, interpret the poem as Banerjee making a veiled expression without taking any sides.
Incidentally, Banerjee has, over the last few months, maintained a silence on multiple issues; particularly, ones where the public reaction is not clear.
Many observers feel the Chief Minister is in a Catch-22 situation in Bengal. Any comment by her will be seen as an appeasement of one community at the cost of another. And she cannot afford antagonising any community ahead of local body elections in 2020 or the 2021 Assembly polls.
“BJP is breathing down her neck. And polarisation is a reality. The effects have been partly visible in the Lok Sabha polls when her party failed to make a significant mark across one-time strong holds,” a political observer said on condition of anonymity.
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