Durga Puja pandal sports Mamata's favourite colour

Kolkata: The pink city of Jaipur has been recreated in blue in a puja pandal in south Kolkata where Goddess Durga also wears a sari of a matching colour. With a budget pegged upwards of Rs 20 lakh, the colour of the pandal, lights and even the facade of most of the houses on the road leading to the pandal are in blue and white, the favourite colour combination of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. [caption id=“attachment_499794” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mamata Banerjee’s favourite colour is blue. PTI[/caption] The puja pandal of 75 Pally Durga Puja committee at Bhawanipore falls under the Chief Minister’s assembly constituency and is patronised by senior Trinamool Congress leaders Saugata Roy and Madan Mitra. “We all know that the CM has a fascination for a colour combination of blue and white. With this as a model, we wanted to show how beautiful Kolkata can look in future with these colours,” said the organiser Manik Dey. “When the ambience is already blue, we thought we could experiment and the goddess wears a blue sari instead of a traditional red one. It looks beautiful,” the organisers said. With blue and white columns made of fabric replicating those in Jaipur, the pandal houses a replica of the Gobinda temple in Rajasthan. “This is also a tribute to our leader Mamata Banerjee who has struggled hard to fight for us,” Dey said. After Banerjee came to power last year, road dividers, lamp posts, railings of flyovers, parks, bridges and flyovers have been painted in blue and white. PTI