Silchar: Widespread protests erupted in Assam’s Cachar district Saturday after a newly elected municipal board removed the portrait of Blessed Mother Teresa from the chairperson’s office.

The Silchar Municpal Board is dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party. One of the board’s first move was to remove the portrait, which had earlier hung alongside Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

The board Saturday replaced the saintly nun’s portrait with Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, commonly known as the Jan Sangh, a nationalist political party that existed from 1951 to 1977. It was the political arm of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu right-wing organization.

The party then merged with the Janata Party that formed the first non-Congress government in New Delhi. After the Janata party split, the RSS-affiliated party renamed itself as Bharatiya Janata Party.

The civic body’s newly elected chairperson Niharendra Narayan Thakur said he had removed Mother Teresa’s portrait as “it was not fit to be placed alongside Tagore, Islam and Bose.”

The municipal chairperson alleged that political parties were trying to make a political issue for the vested interests.

Tagore (1861-1941) was the first non-European to receive Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. He reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with contextual modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Islam (1899-1976) is the national poet of Bangladesh. Popularly known as Nazrul, his poetry and music espoused Indo-Islamic renaissance and intense spiritual rebellion against fascism and oppression. The National Poet of Bangladesh is highly revered in India, especially in West Bengal.

Bose (1897-1945) was an Indian nationalist whose attempt during World War II to rid India of British rule with the help of Nazi Germany and Japan left a troubled legacy.

Opposition Congress, Students’ Federation of India and Democratic Youth Federation took out rallies in the town from Saturday to protest the portrait’s removal.

Congress MP from Silchar Sushmita Dev Sunday termed the chairperson’s action as “really very unfortunate.” He accused the BJP-led board of indulging in divisive politics instead of working for the development of the town.

In February, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat triggered national wide protest after he said that the prime motive behind Mother Teresa’s service to the destitute was converting them to Christianity.

Bhagwat was speaking at a function in a village in Bharatpur, Haryana, on February 23. He said her selfish aim devalued the virtues of a noble cause.