Photo: Screengrab
NEW DELHI: Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPM on Wednesday claimed the “goons” of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacked and broke communist icon Vladimir Lenin’s statue in Murshidabad district, where the saffron party’s Gouri Sankar Ghosh won by over 30,000 votes in assembly polls.The party said it registered a police complaint, leading to arrest of five and vowed to rebuild the statue on May 8.”On the night of May 5, in Jiaganj area of Murshidabad district, BJP goons attacked and broke a statue of Lenin. Our comrades immediately responded and filed a police complaint. A demonstration was held, following which five were arrested. This morning, our comrades went to the site again. The statue will be rebuilt on May 8th,” the party posted on X. Vladimir Lenin was a Russian revolutionary who led the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and founded the Soviet Union, becoming one of the most influential communist leaders, having overwhelming influence in West Bengal politics under the CPM regime, which was uprooted by the TMC’s Mamata Banerjee after three decades in 2011.The mega transition repeated on May 4 when the BJP, in a similar way, decimated the ruling Trinamool by winning 207 seats with commanding 45.8 per cent vote share in the 294-seat Bengal assembly. Since the verdict, a spiral of violence has been witnessed across the state that left at least four people dead, dozens injured and party offices ransacked, as rival cadres from Trinamool Congress and BJP clashed in multiple districts overnight.Two deaths were reported in Kolkata within 24 hours. In Beleghata, Trinamool poll agent Biswajit Pattanaik, 45, was found bleeding at his doorstep after stepping out following a phone call. Police suspect he was chased, tried to flee across rooftops and fell, though his family alleges he was dragged out and beaten.In 2018, two statues of Lenin were brought down in South Tripura just days after the Left was defeated in assembly polls by the BJP and its ally IPFT, which together won a two-third majority in the House in a state where the CPI(M) was in power for 25 years.A five-foot high fibre glass statue of Lenin was toppled at Belonia, while a smaller figure was razed at Sabroom two days before.
