Both BJP, TMC responsible for systemic attack on Bengal, says CPM

NEW DELHI: Even as Trinamool Congress and BJP played whodunit over Tuesday’s violent clashes in West Bengal in which iconic reformer and educationist Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s bust was vandalised, rivals and critics CPM squarely blamed both parties for letting Bengal descend into an abyss of communal polarisation.
As videos of vandals invading Vidyasagar College began circulating on social media, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury attacked the BJP-RSS for vandalising India’s “civilisational heritage.”
“BJP-RSS think nothing of when they vandalise the historic Vidyasagar College, break Vidyasagar statue. This is their advocacy of India’s civilisational heritage? Attacking knowledge is central to getting their poisonous project going. Bengal will reject the destruction they offer,” he said, calling the attack, not about just a statue, but a “systematic attack on Bengal”.
“One of the biggest symbols of the Bengal renaissance is what BJP-RSS have attacked. These obscurantists have always opposed Vidyasagar’s ideas. But Bengal will not succumb,” he added.
Equally unsparing in his criticism of the TMC, which together with the BJP, has led to a near wipeout of the Left, Yechury said, “No difference between Modi and Mamata when it comes to suppressing freedom of speech and expression. They serve as mutual reinforcement to each other. Bengal has to defeat both these forces.”
Earlier in the day, the CPM leader also accused both BJP and TMC of being “hell-bent on negating the heritage and ethos of Bengal.”
“Empty vessels make the most noise. Attempts at communal polarisation by the TMC and BJP insult the people of Bengal who have always stood for social harmony and pluralism. The Left Front is working with the people to defeat these forces,” he said.