Broken statue of Vladimir Lenin removed from altar in Bengal's Jiaganj

Kolkata: The broken statue of Vladimir Lenin has been removed from the altar in Jiaganj of West Bengal's Murshidabad district, the police said on Saturday.

The incident has created a sensation in the area and political battle has started over who removed the statue in the dark of night.

There was a statue of Lenin made of fibre at the three-headed intersection in front of Jiaganj Shripat Singh College.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power in the state in May this year, it was suddenly rumoured that the statue of Maratha icon Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj would replace Lenin at that place following which it was seen that the statue of Lenin was broken overnight.

It was alleged that "BJP-backed goons" had carried out such an incident.

The BJP had claimed that no one from their party was behind the destruction of the statue of Lenin.

Since then, the broken statue of Lenin had been installed on the altar. But in the darkness of the night, someone suddenly removed the statue from the altar.

No one has been arrested in this incident yet.

A written complaint has been filed with Jiaganj police station on behalf of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). However, the broken statue has not been found.

According to local sources, the then CPI-M-run municipality of Jiaganj installed the statue of Lenin in 2008.

The then Jiaganj Mayor Shankar Mandal had the Lenin statue made of fibre from Ghurni in Nadia district's Krishnanagar.

The artist of the statue was President's Award-winning Mriganka Pal.

On the night of May 5, a group of miscreants broke the statue. A political row has began over the destruction of this statue.

After the statue has been removed, the CPI-M has directly blamed the BJP for the removal of the statue.

The CPI-M Murshidabad district secretary, Jamir Mollah, alleged, "Those who had previously destroyed the statue have now removed the statue to destroy the evidence. A complaint was filed with Jiaganj police station when the statue was destroyed. But the police did not take any action. The situation is still the same."

However, the BJP has termed all these allegations of the CPI-M as "baseless". Jiaganj MLA and state Library Services Minister Gouri Shankar Ghosh claimed that BJP does not believe in the politics of destruction, but rather believes in the politics of creation and construction, adding that: "Destruction of any scholar's statue is not the culture of the BJP. Respecting every scholar is the main ideology of our party."

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