Veteran Leftist leader Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy today termed the pulling down of statue of communist icon Vladimir Lenin in Tripura as a "third-rate type of violence and vandalism".
The CPI general secretary also described as "nonsense and meaningless" Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir's statement that statues of foreign leaders have no place in India.
"It's all a third-rate type of violence and vandalism by the BJP. It's all a planned affair," Reddy said on the pulling down of the Russian revolutionary leader's statue in South Tripura's Belonia town.
"The BJP lost badly in Delhi (last Assembly elections), nobody attacked their offices; they lost in Bihar, nobody attacked their offices, but in Tripura even before assuming the power, not only Lenin's statue, many offices of the CPI(M) were attacked in different parts of the state," he said.
Reddy said, "It was very shameful that they don't even appeal to their people to stop this violence and condemn it. It shows the real fascist character of the BJP".
Terming Ahir's statement "meaningless", the Communist leader said one can find statues of several foreigners who played key part in big projects in pre-independence era.
"Mahatma Gandhi's statue is there in many other countries of the world. So, these type of things (the statement) is nonsense," he said.
The violence followed the BJP's victory in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in the northeast state, where a 25-year Communist government was ousted.
Responding to a question on the pulling down of Lenin's statue, Ahir told PTI: "We condemn all kinds of violence and the state government is handling the situation. But I want to make it clear that the statues of foreign leaders are not required in India. I don't want to take anyone's name but I want to say that we have no place for them".
