Congress President Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the Centre over the destruction of a Periyar statue on Tuesday.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the Centre over the destruction of a Periyar statue on Tuesday.
Taking to Twitter, Gandhi said, "When the RSS & BJP encouraged the tearing down of Lenin statues in Tripura, they signalled their cadres to destroy statues of those who opposed their ideology, like Periyar, the great social reformer who fought for the Dalits. His statue too was destroyed today in Tamil Nadu."
The statue of pro-Tamil movement leader, Periyar, was vandalised by unidentified persons in Pudukkottai. A case was registered and investigation on, news agency ANI reported.
The incident comes to light after two people were arrested for allegedly vandalising a Periyar statue at a municipal corporate office in Tamil Nadu's Vellore on March 6.
Both the accused were in an inebriated condition. Earlier on Tuesday, BJP national secretary H Raja had threatened to take down statues of 'Periyar' EV Ramasamy soon, like the Lenin statue that was vandalised and razed in Tripura after the BJP's poll victory in the state. He, however, retracted his statement, claiming that his account had been hacked.
Raja had issued the threats in a Facebook Post. "Who is Lenin? How is he connected to India? How is communism connected to India? The Lenin statue was razed in Tripura. Today it is a Lenin statue in Tripura. Tomorrow, it will be the statue of caste-crazed EV Ramasamy in Tamil Nadu," read his post, that was deleted after the fiery backlash.
The accused who targetted the Periyar statue around 9 pm were both drunk, one of them was a BJP member and another a CPI worker, say reports. Social activist Periyar had started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam, one of the first Dravidian outfits in the country. The reports further say that the glasses and nose of the statue were damaged.
DMK working president MK Stalin has demanded the arrest of Raja for his post. After the backlash, Raja reportedly claimed that someone else had inadvertently posted it on his page. Even his party leaders distanced themselves from the controversial remarks.
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