State to install new statue after Vidyasagar bust was desecrated by BJP workers: Partha

Kolkata: The state government will install a new statue of Pandit Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar at Vidyasagar College, Partha Chatterjee, the state Education minister, said on Friday.

The statue of Vidyasagar was vandalised by BJP workers after the roadshow of Amit Shah passed through Bidhan Sarani on Tuesday evening. While some BJP workers broke open the lock of the main gate of the college, others scaled the wall and entered the college premises and then smashed the half bust statue of Vidyasagar.

It may be mentioned that Narendra Modi while addressing a gathering in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday said the Centre will install a statue of Vidyasagar made of "panch dhatu" in the college. Reacting to his statement, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday that the state government will install the statue on its own and does not need any help from Modi.

Chatterjee also said the state government will set up a museum on Vidyasagar but did not specify where it would come up. It may be mentioned that the house of Vidyasagar in Badurbagan off Amherst Street has been maintained and the table he used to write on, the bench where he used to sit have been preserved. Also, the letter written by him to Kadambini Ganguly, the first Bengali graduate in 1886 who later became the first Indian doctor and received training in England, has also been preserved.

He said the state government has chalked up an elaborate scheme to observe the bicentenary of Vidyasagar. It has also been decided that Barna Parichay which he wrote for children to get them acquainted with Bengali alphabets, will be distributed free of cost among children.

Chatterjee added that after the Mamata Banerjee government came to power in 2011, the birth anniversaries of the great sons of Bengal are being observed in a befitting manner. The 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda and Dwijendra Lal Roy had been observed.

Chatterjee said the ancestral house of Vidyasagar at Birsingha village in Midnapore has been renovated.

Vidyasagar had played a major role to spread education among women and widow remarriage. For children, he wrote Barna Parichay, Kathamala and Betal Panchabingsati.

Michael Madhusudan Dutt, one of his close friends, wrote about him "The man to whom I have appealed has the genius and wisdom of an ancient sage, the energy of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother."