Silchar civic board not to reinstall Teresa's portrait

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Silchar Municipal Board chairman Niharendra Narayan Thakur, who recently removed Mother Teresa's portrait from the board's office, on Wednesday reiterated that the portrait would not be reinstalled.

"I would not reinstall the portrait of Mother Teresa as long as I am the chairman of the municipal board," Thakur told reporters here.

He said: "It was not befitting to place portrait of Mother Teresa alongside India's great personalities like Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose."

Nobel laureate Mother Teresa's portrait, which was earlier placed alongside Tagore, Nazrul and Bose in the municipal board office, was last week replaced by Jana Sangh leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee's, at Thakur's insistence.

The student and youth wings of the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) took out separate rallies earlier this week in Silchar, protesting the removal of Teresa's portrait.

The Congress's Lok Sabha member from Silchar, Sushmita Dev, who was earlier the chairman of the Silchar Municipal Board, alleged that the BJP-led board was indulging in divisive politics instead of working unitedly for the development of the city and the latest move was "very unfortunate."

The BJP recently wrested the 28-member municipal board from the Congress by winning 17 seats.

The Congress got eight seats and the Independents secured three seats in the board's elections held in February.