New Delhi: Months ahead of the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, the Congress on Tuesday slammed the BJP for indulging in corruption in matters related to the Hindu religion and asked the saffron party to apologise for the same.
AICC in charge of Madhya Pradesh JP Agarwal raised the recent incident where several giant statues of ancient sages and Gods were broken due to strong winds inside the well-known Mahakal (Lord Shiva) temple complex in Ujjain. The renovated temple complex was inaugurated by PM Modi in October last year.
“It seems the faulty statues were installed in a hurry ahead of PM Modi’s visit. Around Rs 351 crores were spent on the statues. A grand tamasha was organised at public expense for the PM’s event. The statues breaking down in less than eight months shows they were made of poor-quality material,” Agarwal said. “We demand a probe by a high court judge into the entire episode as concerns over the quality of statues had been raised earlier but were brushed aside by the state government,” he said.
The Congress veteran asked the BJP to apologise over the incident saying “This was like playing with the sentiments of the Hindus and all those who believe in the legend of Lord Shiva.” “This is nothing but a new episode in the series of corruption scandals that have surfaced during the BJP government. There is a race for indulging in corruption going on in the BJP and they did not even spare the Gods,” said Agarwal.
“The land scam related to the Ayodhya temple trust is known to all of us. It was found that several BJP functionaries were involved in the scam,” he said. The Congress veteran wondered how such giant statues could break due to strong winds and said that the Ujjain temple complex incident was a first of its kind. “It has never been heard that statues break down due to strong wind. Were they made of paper? The issue needs to be probed,” said Agarwal.
The AICC in charge of Madhya Pradesh said the Congress will get new statues of the ancient sages and Gods made of top-quality material installed in the Ujjain temple complex when the party comes to power in the state. “Were the statues made by a Gujarat-based company? We want to know as the state Lokayukta had earlier raised concerns over corruption against officials involved in the project but such reports were brushed aside,” he said.
According to MP Congress leader Abhay Dubey, “The statues in the Ujjain temple complex are made of fibre-reinforced plastic and there have been reports of serious faults in them.” “Around 125 such statues have to be installed in the complex. The government is saying that the broken statues will be replaced as they are still under the fault-repair clause of the contract. But in the Hindu tradition, broken statues are never worshipped. They have made a joke of the entire thing. This calls for an impartial probe,” said Dubey.
The MP Congress leader highlighted that the previous Congress government headed by Kamal Nath had brought a bill for the renovation of 12,000 old and dilapidated temples in the state and had even fixed honorariums for the priests who worked there. “But after the BJP toppled our government in 2020, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government withdrew the bill. The BJP only uses religion for gaining power,” said Dubey.
Also read: Six idols collapse at Ujjain's Mahakal corridor, Congress demands probe
