Mamata Banerjee is digging her own grave: Aparna Sen says on Jai Shree Ram controversy

She expressed concern over the joining of politics and religion together.

"I don't like it. Politics and religion should be kept completely separate. All problems start from equating politics with religion," she told NDTV.

Sen said: "it is a democracy and people have the right to freedom of expression. If they chant Jai Shri Ram or Allah Hu Akbar or Joi Ma Kali you can't stop them." 

Sen said CM Mamata Banerjee's act of getting down the car and trying to stop those chanting Jai Shree Ram was not liked by her.

"I don't like the way our chief minister got out of the car and tried to stop them and used abusive language. That doesn't behove her," Aparna Sen told NDTV.

"But I have to say all her reactions are kneejerk reactions. She's so impulsive. She doesn't think before she does anything. If she aims to be the chief minister of Bengal for a long time, she has to start practising controlling her speech, controlling the way she talks, just the impulse to talk she has to control. She has to first think it out and then say what she has to say...take the advice of people around her, like Amit Mitra and Saugata Roy. She should not say the first thing that comes to her head," she said.

  "She's turning her voters against her. She's digging her own grave," she said as the state is gearing up for the Assembly polls in 2021.

Sen said Mamata Banerjee and her TMC might face a tough battle in the Assembly polls.

"She will have a very, very tough fight in the assembly elections. The civilized urban elite middle class are all pro-BJP now. I worry for that. I am sure Mr Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) will make a real effort to set things right in this country. But their basic idea of equating nationalism with Hinduism...The Savarkar brand of nationalism, that worries me. I would much rather go with Gandhi's pluralism," she said.

In her message to PM Narendra Modi, Sen said: "I don't have the temerity to send a message to Mr Modi. But If I may humbly say, Mr Prime Minister, just look after all your subjects. Remember, you are not the prime minister of only the Hindus, you are also the Prime Minister of the Christians, Dalits and Muslims."

BJP won 18 seats in the Lok Sabha Polls in West Bengal while the Trinamool Congress managed to keep 22 in their belt.

This is a sharp dip from TMC's 2014 tally of 34 seats.

Mamata Banerjee and Jai Shree Ram:

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Sunday published a statement on social media saying she had no problems with any political slogan, but she could not support the way in which the BJP was using the religious slogan "Jai Shree Ram" by way of mixing religion with politics.

Videos of the CM getting rattled by BJP supporters chanting "Jai Shri Ram" at her convoy had gone viral over the past several days.

"From Ram Mohan Roy to Vidyasagar to other great social reformers, Bengal has been a seat of harmony, progress and forward thinking. But now, the misconceived strategy of BJP is targeting Bengal in a very negative manner. I have no problem, regarding any particular slogan of political parties in their rallies, and for their party purpose. Every political party has their own slogan. My party has Jai Hind, Vande Mataram. The Left has Inquilab Zindabad. Others have different slogans. We respect each other," Mamata wrote on Facebook.

"Jai Sia Ram, Jai Ram ji ki, Ram naam Satya hai etc have religious and social connotations. We respect these sentiments. But BJP is using religious slogan Jai Sri Ram as their party slogan in a misconceived manner by way of mixing religion with politics. We do not respect this forcible enforcement of political slogans on others in the name of so called RSS which Bengal never accepted. This is a deliberate attempt to sell hatred ideology through vandalism and violence which we must oppose together," she said.

"One can fool some people sometimes, but cannot fool all the people all the time."

"This is high time that proper action is taken to restrain political workers not to indulge in activities of creating unrest, chaos, violence and disruption of normal life by taking recourse to misplaced ideologies in the so called name of religion to create divide among the people. If all other political parties start resorting to these sort of divisive and disruptive activities, then the entire environment would become highly vitiated and counterproductive," she said.

"We have to and would oppose such moves of BJP very strongly in order to keep secular character of the country as enshrined in our constitution," Mamata added.