AGARTALA: Two statues of Lenin have been pulled down in the last 24 hours by mobs in Tripura, where the Left Front suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of BJP and its ally, the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura IPFT ), in the assembly elections.On Tuesday, a statue of the Communist icon was razed to the ground at Sabroom, in the southernmost tip of the state bordering Bangladesh, while on Monday a mob demolished a statue of Lenin using an excavator at Belonia. Both Sabroom and Belonia fall in South Tripura district.Coming within two days of BJP demolishing the CPM citadel, the Lenin statues were targeted amid growing attacks on Left Front supporters, allegedly by BJP and IPFT activists.Concerned over the violence, Union home minister Rajnath Singh asked Tripura governor Tathagata Roy and state DGP A K Shukla to ensure peace and tranquillity until the new BJP-IPFT government takes charge.While the driver of the excavator used to demolish the statue in Belonia has been arrested, police said they were in the process of identifying other attackers. Meanwhile, BJP described the demolition of statues as an “outburst of people’s anger”.What added more to BJP and Centre’s discomfiture were the tweets from Roy and BJP general secretary Ram Madhav that many construed as being supportive of the demolition of the statues. The governor had tweeted that “anything done by a democratically elected government can be undone by a new government”. Madhav’s tweet, which was later deleted, referred to the slogan for change which BJP had given during the campaign: “People taking down Lenin’s statue… not in Russia; it is in Tripura. ‘Chalo Paltai’.”In a memorandum to PM Modi on Tuesday, the CPM politburo asked for his immediate intervention to end the violence in Tripura. The memorandum claimed that 208 CPM offices have been captured by attackers. Police spokesperson Pradip De said there were no reports of disturbance on Tuesday. About the demolition in Belonia, he said, “The statue had been installed with the approval of the municipality, so pulling it down is a crime.”

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