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Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Politics
Subhrajit Sen

‘Sitting on a volcano’: Two Indian temples clash as politics and faith mix

Mamata Banerjee Bharatiya Janata Party India Digha TMC Al Jazeera Hindu Narendra Modi West Bengal Hinduism
A group of devotees at the new Jagannath Temple in Digha, West Bengal, in eastern India, celebrate during the Rath Yatra festival on May, 5 2025 [Subrajit Sen/Al Jazeera]

Digha, India – On a hot and sultry June afternoon, Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of India’s West Bengal state, swept a sun-scorched road to make way for a towering chariot in Digha, a tourist town on the country’s Bay of Bengal coast.

The moment, captured by dozens of cameras and broadcast widely on television, on June 27, marked the launch of the eastern state’s first-ever government-sponsored Rath Yatra (“chariot festival”) to celebrate the construction of a sprawling temple complex built to house the Hindu god, Lord Jagannath.

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