Violence has erupted across Tripura soon after the BJP secured an unprecedented victory in the just-concluded assembly elections in the state. Both the CPI-M and the CPI have condemned the violence allegedly perpetrated by the BJP supporters.
On Monday, a mob wearing BJP cap and chanting Bharat Mata Ki Jai brought demolished the statue of Lenin at Belonia College Square in Tripura. This came a day after the CPIM’s office was ransacked allegedly by the supporters of the BJP.
Reacting the development, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury told ANI, “The violence in Tripura makes the intention of the BJP and the RSS very clear. Their political future is all about violence. People of Tripura will give a fitting reply.”
Meanwhile, The Indian Express reported that Section 144 had been imposed in several violence affected areas in Tripura barring groups of four or more people from assembling in the areas where Section 144 has been imposed.
The CPI’s D Raja too condemned the violence adding that this was not acceptable in a democracy. Ironically, the widespread violence allegedly by the members of the BJP has come in sharp contrast to what the saffron party chief, Amit Shah, had said during the election campaign. Addressing a rally during the election campaign, Shah had said, “We want to change politics of violence in Tripura to politics of development.”
Elsewhere, the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP, Subramanian Swamy, told ANI that Lenin was a foreigner and a terrorist questioning the rationale behind keeping his statue in India. He said, “You can keep that statue inside the headquarters of the Communist Party and worship him.”
The BJP’s north-east states’ in-charge, Ram Madhav too posted the photo of the statue being demolished and wrote, “People taking down Lenin’s statue … not in Russia, it is in Tripura. ‘Chalo Paltai.'” He later deleted that tweet.
Jignesh Mevani, a popular Dalit leader and the newly-elected independent MLA in Gujarat assembly, wrote, “If this news is true, then aside from taking down Lenin’s statue, I hope you will also take down the casteist Manu statue in Rajasthan High Court!!”
Soon after the saffron party’s win in Trupya, its senior leader and a minister in Assam government, Himanta Biswa Sarma had asked the outgoing chief minister, Manik Sarkar, to take shelter in Bangladesh.