Mayawati: If Ram statue OK, why not mine?

Riled by the attention around a petition questioning construction of her statues along with other Dalit leaders in UP when she was CM, BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday asked why no such objections were being raised over a proposed 221-metre statue of Lord Ram in Ayodhya.

The BSP leader’s affidavit in the Supreme Court recalled an established tradition of installing statues. “Memorials and installation of statues are not new in India. During Congress regimes, the Centre and state agencies installed statues of Nehru, Indira, Rajiv, Narasimha Rao with public funds... But neither the media nor the petitioners have raised any question,” she said.

She cited the Gujarat government’s recent construction of a 182m statue of Sardar Patel at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore from public funds and the Yogi government’s plan to build the statue of Ram with an initial cost of Rs 200 crore.


Installing my statues was the will of the people: Maya
Mayawati also cited the example of state funding for statues of Shivaji in Mumbai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy across undivided Andhra Pradesh, the proposed 350-feet Mother Cauvery statue in Mandya in Karnataka at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore, N T Rama Rao’s statue in Amaravati at a cost of Rs 155 crore and that of J Jayalalithaa at Marina beach, Chennai, at a cost of Rs 50 crore.

She said she had endeared herself to the masses as she had decided to remain unmarried and dedicate her life to uplifting the downtrodden and it was the will of the people that forced the state legislature to approve budgetary sanction for memorials and statues, including that of her.

“My statues came to be installed as the will of the state legislature representing the will of the people. However, some disgruntled elements could not digest such respect for a Dalit woman leader and they resorted to invoking the jurisdiction of the SC and the Allahabad HC by filing PILs raising the issue of construction of memorials and installation of statues of the CM,” she said.