2014 LS polls on mind, Cong, BJP in statue war

While the BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has decided to build a statue of Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel on the Narmada River, the Congress government in Maharashtra has said it will construct a statue of Shivaji on the Arabian Sea and a memorial of Bhimrao Ambedkar in Mumbai.

Updated on: Dec 26, 2013, 24:47:01 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Politics over the statues of national heroes proposed by the Congress and the BJP is reaching new heights with the 2014 general elections inching closer. The battle is not just about whose statue will be taller but has also become a race to get environmental clearance for the projects — which the Congress seems to be winning.

While the BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has decided to build a statue of Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel on the Narmada River, the Congress government in Maharashtra has said it will construct a statue of Shivaji on the Arabian Sea and a memorial of Bhimrao Ambedkar in Mumbai.

Clearance from the environment ministry under the coastal regulation zone (CRZ) is mandatory for the three projects.

Despite opposition from ecologists, the ministry gave its nod to the 350-feet Shivaji statue, which will be built on an 18 hectare rock outcrop in the Arabian Sea. The approval allows the Congress to keep a poll promise made 9 years ago. The statue will be taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The statue was originally planned to be 312-feet high, but was increased after Modi announced a 597-feet long statue of Sardar Patel at Sadhu Bet, an island located 3km from Sardar Sarovar Dam.

However, the ministry has asked the Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority to clarify whether the Modi government has sought permission.
“The usually prompt Gujarat government is yet to reply,” a ministry official said. Depending on the state government’s reply, the ministry may initiate proceedings.

Another fillip to the Congress came a fortnight ago when the union cabinet approved transfer of land — originally owned by Indu Mills — to the Maharashtra government to build a memorial for Bhimrao Ambedkar. His ashes are interred at Chaitya Bhoomi near the mills.

The Maharashtra government also plans to build a statue of Ambedkar there.

Dalit groups in Gujarat have asked the Maharashtra government to construct the world’s tallest statue for Ambedkar, putting pressure on Modi.
The green ministry said it had given its go ahead to the project as the memorial did not fall in the no-development zone of 500 meters from the sea coast.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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