‘Lord Ram Has A Statue’: Mayawati Justifies Building Her Own Statues During Chief Ministerial Regime

Equating herself with Lord Ram over the controversy of the construction of her statue, BSP supremo Mayawati has questioned the construction of the 221-metre statue of the deity in Ayodhya, reports TOI.

Miffed by the petition questioning the construction of statues of herself, other BSP leaders, and her party symbol, the elephant, during her tenure as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati defended her actions in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, saying, “Memorials and installation of statues is not a new phenomenon in India. The Centre and State agencies during the Congress regime installed the statues of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao across the country with public funds. But neither the media nor the petitioners have raised any question on the same.”

Giving the examples of the 182 metre tall statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat and Yogi Adityanath’s UP government seeking to build a 221 metre statue of Lord Ram with an estimated cost of Rs 221 crore for land acquisition alone, Mayawati went on saying, “My statues came to be installed as the will of state legislature and the mass. People who cant digest the ascension of a Dalit women to such peaks are invoking the Allahabad HC and the SC through PILs.”