All statues of Lenin should be demolished: BJP MLA

A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday said all statues of Russian Communist icon Vladimir Lenin in India should be demolished.

Welcoming demolition of Lenin's statue in Tripura; Raj Purohit, a BJP MLA from Maharashtra, said all the statues of Lenin should be demolished.

"I am very happy that Lenin's statue has been demolished. Lenin's statues were installed in Tripura for the sake of power. What is Lenin's contribution to India? Lenin's statue is a symbol of insult and his all statues should be demolished," the BJP MLA from Colaba in Mumbai said.

He added that the Russian communist leader cannot be linked to Indian ideology of non-violence, humanity as he killed many people.

"Can Lenin be linked to Indian ideology of non-violence, humanity? Lenin was a cruel leader and killed lakhs of people. He did not provide equality in his rule," Purohit said.

He termed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology as best for India.

The BJP MLA said unlike Lenin, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay treated every human being as equal

Upadhyay was an eminent Indian thinker, social worker and politician who was one of the leaders of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of the present day BJP.

After the BJP's victory in Tripura elections on Saturday, a mob with the help of bulldozers uprooted and demolished a five-foot-tall fibre-glass Lenin statue at the College Square in south Tripura's Belonia on Monday.

Lenin's statue demolition has begun a statue vandalisation spree in India.

Recently statues of prominent personalities, like social activist E.V. Ramasamy 'Periyar' in Vellore city of Tamil Nadu, and Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee's statue in Kolkata, have been vandalised.

Purohit's assertion has come at a time when earlier in the day Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh condemned incidents of statue vandalism in several states and called it 'unfortunate and unjustified'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condemned in strong words the recent incidents of vandalism and spoke with Rajnath Singh regarding the same.

A Ministry of Home Affairs statement said the ministry has taken serious note of such incidents and asked the concerned states to deal sternly with persons responsible for the acts and book them under relevant provisions of law.