Governor Tathagata Roy, BJP's Subramanian Swamy condone razing of Lenin's statue in Tripura

NEW DELHI: Tripura's governor Tathagata Roy and BJP MP Subramanian Swamy have condoned the act of hooligans who razed a statue of Communist revolutionary leader Lenin yesterday.

Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav also tweeted his approval of this act of hooliganism, but later deleted his tweet.


À la Baghdad 2016, a bunch of men with a bulldozer in tow, illegally razed a statue of Lenin in a public square in Tripura's Belonia, a video released by ANI earlier today showed. The video shows a crowd of people, many wearing saffron shirts and shouting "Bharat mata ki jai", using a bulldozer to upend the statue of the Communist revolutionary hero from its pedestal.


In response to a tweet by author Anand Ranganathan, who called the act "unacceptable", governor Roy said, "What one democratically elected government can do another democratically elected government can undo. And vice versa."

Roy didn't mention the fact that destroying public property is illegal and a punishable offence.



Meanwhile, BJP MP Swamy also appeared to condone the act.

"Lenin is a foreigner and in a way, a terrorist, there shouldn't be a statue of this sort of person in our country? They are welcome to put that statue inside the Communist Party headquarters and worship it if they so wish," said Swamy to ANI.

Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav also appeared to have taken pleasure in the razing of public property. In a tweet he later deleted, Madhav said: "People taking down Lenin's statue...not in Russia; it is in Tripura. 'Chalo Paltai' " The last two words are Bengali for: "Let's change".


All of this occurred as Tripura police yesterday got scores of complaints about post-poll violence from various parts of the state since Sunday, and despite the BJP warning its supporters of "stern" action if they indulged in "post-poll violence". Union minister Rajnath Singh even called the Tripura governor this morning to discuss the law and order situation in the state.

The CPM and the BJP blamed each other for the violence. The former accused the governor Roy of being in cahoots with the BJP, in inciting the violence.


The BJP denied the allegations saying it "does not practice the culture of violence".

Some of those who support Left parties are trying to foist these kind of debates that a statue is removed," said the BJP's Nalin Kohli.

A JD (U) MP - whose party had divided loyalties in the elections in the three northeastern states - today expressed his disapproval of the razing of Lenin's statue.

"This is wrong. People of this nation believe in different ideologies. It is true that Lenin's statues were demolished after end of ruling in Russia. But India is not Russia, all ideologies should be supported here. Lenin brought huge revolution in 1917 for poor," said JD(U) MP Harivansh, to ANI.