Actor-turned-politician Moon Moon Sen on Sunday claimed that the vandalisation of the bust of Bengali reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar in Kolkata on May 14 was “a tiny bit of violence”, NDTV reported. The statue was broken during Bharatiya Janata Party National President Amit Shah’s roadshow in the city.

“Things have been polarised for the last six years in Bengal and it wasn’t the Bengalis,” the Trinamool Congress MP told NDTV after casting her vote in Kolkata. “There may have been a little bit of violence like in other states, but no one talks about the violence in the last five years in Uttar Pradesh...This is a tiny bit of violence.”

The BJP and the Trinamool Congress have accused each other of desecrating the statue. But Sen claimed no Bengali would do it unless they had switched parties from the Trinamool Congress. “We are secular in Kolkata... non-Bengali include Sikhs, Jews, Armenians, Gujaratis, Muslims, everyone,” she said.

Sen had told reporters during polling for her Lok Sabha constituency, Asansol, on April 29 that she had not heard of the clashes between BJP and Trinamool Congress supporters. Sen said, “They gave me my bed tea very late so I woke up very late. What can I say? I really don’t know.”

West Bengal has seen the most violence during the seven phases of Lok Sabha elections. Central forces have been dispatched in large numbers to quell the violence. Following the vandalisation of Vidyasagar’s statue, the poll panel decided to end campaigning in the state one day ahead of schedule.