CPI (M) stages protest in Kolkata against the razing of Lenin statue

The CPI (M) members, including Brinda Karat, raised slogans condemning the incident.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday took out a protest march in Kolkata against the demolition of a statue of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The CPI (M) members, including Brinda Karat, raised slogans condemning the incident. The statue was razed in Belonia, allegedly by BJP supporters who had brought the bulldozer to pull down the five-feet-tall fibre glass statue.

The CPI(M) alleged that the supporters and activists of the BJP-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) alliance were terrorizing its workers and burning party offices since the announcement of poll results on March 3.

Protest march in Kolkata

On Saturday, the Left that ruled Tripura for over 2 decades was defeated by the BJP. What followed was jubilation and celebrations by the BJP for whom this was a huge moral victory.The BJP-IPFT combine scripted history by winning the Tripura Assembly polls with a two-thirds majority, ending 25 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the north-eastern state.

CPI (M) alleged that BJP was behind statue demolition

At Belonia town in Tripura stood a statue of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. Within 48 hours of the verdict in Tripura, BJP workers and supporters thronged the centre of College Square and brought down the Lenin statue that stood there for the past 5 years. With the help of a JCB and amidst chants of Bharat Mata ki jai, the statue was brought down.

Left parties idolise Lenin

A political war of words broke out immediately with the Left terming the incident as 'Communism phobia." The BJP reacted by saying that the statue was brought down by people who were oppressed by the Left.

Lenin statue being razed

The statue was sculpted by local artist Krishna Debnath at a cost of Rs 3 lakh. It was installed to commemorate the Left's 21st year of rule in 2013 after it won the assembly elections. Raju Nath, the BJP's south district secretary who has been blamed by the CPI(M) for planning the incident said that the incident was a result of an overflow of anger.

(Images credit - ANI/Twitter)

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