The statue of communist icon and former head of government of Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin, which was pulled down by a group of people in South Tripura’s Belonia recently, will be kept at the premises of the municipal body here, a top official said on Wednesday.

The nearly 11-ft tall fibre glass statue, which stood on a pedestal at the College Square, was brought down on Monday with the help of a bulldozer.

“We initially let the damaged statue lay there since we were not sure about the mood of the people. We wanted things to subside a bit,” said Belonia Municipal Council’s CEO Amit Ghosh.

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He said, “it has not yet been decided whether it will be kept indoor or outdoor at the Council’s premises.”

“The head is severed from the main body of the statue, so it presents an ungainly sight. We will try to wrap it up in something. Whatever happened is condemnable. Lenin is a world icon,” the CEO said, adding “there is no CCTV camera in the area where the incident took place”.

The statue was erected sometime in 2015 at a cost of nearly Rs. 5 lakh and a local artist sculpted it. The fund had come from the Tripura Urban Employment Programme (TUEP), he said.

Amit Shah warns cadres against such acts

BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday condemned the cases of vandalism and violence that have come in light from Tamil Nadu and Tripura.

Also read | Lenin, Periyar statues razed, PM Modi expresses his strong disapproval

After two statues of Vladimir Lenin were razed in Tripura, a statue of rationalist leader E V Ramasamy, popularly known as ‘Periyar’, was vandalised in Vellore on Tuesday.

In a series of tweets, Amit Shah not only said that the cases of desecrating the statues are extremely unfortunate, but also added that he has spoken to the party units in both Tamil Nadu and Tripura and any “person associated with the BJP found to be involved in such an act will face severe action from the party.”

Widespread condemnation

On Tuesday, the demolition of statue drew widespread condemnation.

The act of vandalising Lenin’s statue with the chant of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ had drawn sharp criticism from the political circuit.

Also read | Demolition of Lenin statue in Tripura undemocratic: Bengal BJP chief

AAP leader Ashutosh took to Twitter and wrote, “Is it a Bamiyan Moment for India? Like Taliban Did in Afghanistan. So BJP is setting the trend. Tomorrow if Congress/Left govt is formed in states/centre then all the symbols of RSS/BJP demolished? This is dangerous, retrograde, result of inferiority complex (sic.).”

Tripura governor Tathagata Roy also took to the micro-blogging site Twitter to talk about the incident and tweeted, “What one democratically elected government can do another democratically elected government can undo. And vice versa.”

Jignesh Mevani wrote, “If this news is true, then aside from taking down Lenin’s statue, I hope you will also take down the casteist Manu statue in Rajasthan High Court!!”

(With agency inputs)