Janjivan Bureau / Mau : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday promised a “grand statue” of 19th century reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar at the same spot where his bust was vandalised in Kolkata while West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Bengal does not need money from the BJP.
Banerjee said the state has enough resources to rebuild the Vidyasagar statue that was vandalised at a Kolkata college following Amit Shah’s road show.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress have been blaming each other for the incident.
Addressing a rally in Mau district in UP, the prime minister said: “We saw hooliganism by Trinamool Congress workers again during Amit Shah’s road show in Kolkata. They vandalised Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s statue. Such people should face strong action.”
Acknowledging the fact that Vidyasagar has immense emotional value for the people of Bengal, he said: “We will install the statue made of ‘panch dhatu’ (five metals) at the same place where the earlier statue was installed. We are committed to Vidyasagar’s vision.”
Addressing a rally in Mandirbazar, Banerjee said, “Modi has promised to rebuild the Vidyasagar statue in Kolkata. Why should we take their (BJP’s) money, Bengal has enough resources.”
She also attacked the BJP, claiming that vandalising statues was one of its habits and that the party has done so in Tripura as well.
“The BJP has destroyed 200-year-old heritage of West Bengal, those supporting the party will not be accepted by the society,” she warned.
Hitting out at the saffron party over its social media posts, the Trinamool Congress supremo also said that the BJP had been spreading canards over Facebook and Twitter.
“The BJP is trying to instigate people and cause riots with its fake posts on social media,” she added.
The Election Commission, which has curtailed campaigning in Bengal, has said it was “deeply anguished at the vandalism done to the statue” of an icon who, “besides his many other achievements as a philosopher, academic educator, writer and philanthropist, worked all his life in the cause of widow remarriage which was un-thought and unheard of in the ultraconservative society in those days”.
