Left Blames BJP for Serial Vandalism of Statues Across the Country

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, 7 March, strongly condemned incidents of vandalism of statues in certain parts of the country and warned of stern action against those found guilty.

Modi spoke to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the matter and expressed his strong disapproval of such incidents, said an official statement by the government.

A statue of Lenin was brought down at Belonia town in South Tripura on 6 March with the help of a bulldozer after the BJP's victory in the Assembly elections in Tripura. This was followed by the vandalism of social reformer and founder of Dravidian movement E V Ramasamy 'Periyar' statue in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district.

On 7 March, Wednesday, a bust of Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee was vandalised in South Kolkata. The police said that seven people, including a woman, allegedly belonging to a left-wing group were behind the destruction.

The accused, who were arrested from the spot, told a TV channel that they defaced and vandalised Mookerjee's bust to protest against the pulling down of communist icon Lenin's statues in Tripura.

A senior officer of Kolkata’s Tollygunge police station said the accused entered the area and raised slogans against the pulling down of Lenin's statues in Tripura. Then, they suddenly started damaging the bust and splattered black ink on it. The locals caught hold of the accused and informed the police.

The third incident took place in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, where a statue of Dalit icon B R Ambedkar was vandalised and replaced later, amid an ongoing spate of incidents targeting statues and busts of known figures across the country.

Following the incident, members of the Dalit community blocked the Meerut-Mawana road even as the administrative officials sought to calm down the protesters and assured them that the vandalised statue would be replaced with a new one.

The officials later said that a new Ambedkar statue had been installed.