Statues Of Gandhi, Shivaji, Ambedkar Shifted Within Parliament; ‘Atrocious’, Says Congress

New Delhi: As the dynamics are about to change in Parliament following the results of Lok Sabha elections, a rejuvenated Congress slammed the BJP after statues of several great leaders were relocated within the premises of the Parliament.

Statues of Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Birsa Munda and Maharana Pratap have been shifted to a lawn between the old Parliament building and Parliament library.

All statues in the Parliament campus are now in the same place.

The relocation is due to a landscaping exercise, which is part of a redevelopment project.

Congress calling the project “atrocious”.

“Statues of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar have just been removed from their places of prominence in front of the Parliament House. This is atrocious,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posted on X.

The party’s media and publicity department head Pawan Khera went a step further, saying that when voters from Maharashtra did not favour the BJP, statues of Shivaji and Ambedkar have been removed from their original place in Parliament.

“Just think, if they had got 400 seats, would they have spared the Constitution?” Khera wrote in a post in Hindi on X.

BJP failed to get majority on its own, settling for 240 seats, thus depending on its allies to form the government as NDA reached 293.

Work is underway to give the entire Parliament premises a new look before the newly-elected assemble for the 19th Lok Sabha.

The plan is to move statues of national icons to a lawn near Gate No. 5 of the old Parliament building, which has been named as Samvidhan Sadan.