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Less than 48 hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the mandate in Tripura, a video emerged showing right-wing supporters razing down a statue of communist icon Vladimir Lenin in the state’s Belonia town.
The video shows the statue, located in the Belonia College Square, being torn down by people wearing t-shirts reading “Chalo Paltai”, while raising chants of “Bharat mata ki jai.”
The CPI(M) offices in various parts of the state were also attacked, reported ANI.
According to PTI, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, on 6 March, spoke to the Governor and Tripura police chief, requesting them to curb the violence in the state, ahead of the swearing-in of the new BJP government.
Condemning the violence, CPI(M) leader and politburo member Sitaram Yechury, on 6 March, told ANI that the violence in the state was a reflection of the BJP-RSS ideology.
On 5 March, BJP national general secretary and the party’s northeast in-charge, Ram Madhav, who is credited for the party’s win in Tripura, voiced his support towards the act of vandalism.
BJP leader Nalin Kohli, however, refuted claims of the party having a hand in the razing of the Lenin statue. He told ANI on 6 March:
The BJP had earlier claimed their win would be the “end of the road” for Communist figures such as Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in Agartala and other parts of the state, reported The Hindu.
The party’s statement was seen as a reference to roads that were renamed after communist revolutionaries and statues that were instituted in their honour by the CPI(M) government led by Manik Sarkar over the last two decades.
During an election rally in Tripura in February, BJP President Amit Shah said that the state was celebrating birth anniversaries of Stalin and Lenin but not of Indian icons.
The BJP-IPFT alliance scripted history by winning 43 seats, ending 25 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the state.
(This is a developing story and will be updated.)
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Published: 05 Mar 2018,01:32 AM IST