Neither the physical circumstances nor the motive seems to support Trinamool’s narrative about ABVP supporters damaging iconic social reformer Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s statue
New Delhi: Tuesday saw an unprecedented spectacle in TMC-ruled Bengal when BJP chief Amit Shah took Kolkata by a huge surprise.
The 7-km roadshow and consequent clashes with the TMC cadre happened as the saffron side unveiled an onslaught in Mamata Banerjee’s own backyard.
But then on the campus of the Vidyasagar College from where Shah’s roadshow passed, a clash ensued between those showing black flags to the BJP president and the ABVP. Bengal’s pride and one of the heroes of Indian Renaissance Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s statue was vandalised.
A narrative, however, is being constructed that the ABVP vandalised the statue. Evidence to support the claim is anyway absent.
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MyNation asks five questions on this that are on many citizens’ mind?
1. Where is CCTV camera footage which might have caught the ABVP activists in their alleged act of vandalism?
2. People who are familiar with the site of the statue know that it is not at the front of the college, but deep inside. How would ABVP activists penetrate the TMC-dominated college without being confronted by TMC supporters?
3. To those pulling ideology into this such as Sitaram Yechury and Congress’s Ahmed Patel, one must remember that Indian Renaissance, of which Vidyasagar was a protagonist, inspired and fed Hindu nationalism in the early phase of Indian national movement. Why would ABVP break stature of someone who is not an adversary?
4. While the BJP is on the rise in Bengal and when the party has emerged as the biggest challenger to the TMC, why would ABVP and BJP damage their own prospects by hurting Bengal’s icons?
5. Conversely, the construction of such a narrative serves the ruling party. If the BJP-ABVP were painted as vandals of the Vidyasagar’s statue, hurting Bengali pride, the biggest gainers are the TMC, isn’t it?
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