Mumbai, Sep 4 The ruling MahaYuti government ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra on Wednesday endorsed BJP Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's comments on how the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's statue in Sindhudurg could have withstood bad weather if it was built with stainless steel.
Unimpressed, the leaders of the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi, Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (SP)-Shiv Sena (UBT), continue to target the government for the disaster alleging huge corruption in the project, and launched a fresh agitation in the state from Sep. 1, demanding the resignation of the MahaYuti regime.
Speaking at an event in Delhi on Tuesday, Nitin Gadkari said that if the Chhatrapati statue at Rajkot Fort in Malvan had been built of stainless steel, it would not have crashed, especially as it stood in the coastal area.
Emphasising the need for the right construction materials, he said that iron gets rusted on the coasts, and he had been insisting on using stainless steel for building roads or bridges that are within 30 km near the sea-shore.
Shiv Sena Chief Spokesperson Krishna Hegde concurred with Gadkari and said that the committee comprising the Indian Navy and technical experts will go into all aspects of the statue crash, and erect a better and grander one in its place.
Nationalist Congress Party (SP) President Sharad Pawar said that statue broke down in barely eight months as the project was given to an inexperienced sculptor, Jaydeep Apte, with limited skills.
"It does not appear that Apte had any expertise to make such a huge statue… the state government's contention that it crashed due to bad weather conditions holds no water... the whole thing seems to reek of corruption," said a stern Pawar on Wednesday in Kolhapur.
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP and Chief Spokesperson Sanjay Raut reiterated on Wednesday that barely a fraction of the huge budget sanctioned for the statue project was utilised and how "someone had pocketed the rest of the funds", which must be probed and the culprits punished.
The Chhatrapati statue crash row rages nine days after it suddenly fell into a heap at the Rajkot Fort, shocking the people of the state, as the MahaYuti of Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party-Nationalist Congress Party attempted a damage-control exercise.
Apprehensive over its implications in the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, plus Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tendered separate apologies.
Meanwhile, the state government on Monday transferred the Sindhudurg Collector and downgraded the scenic coastal district's top post to a non-IAS junior administrative level category, surprising political and government circles.
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