On entering the grand Mahakal Corridor in Ujjain, the religious capital of Madhya Pradesh, you can’t help but notice that seven statues are missing. Their collapse in a gust of wind in May had created a political storm in the poll-bound state.
The pedestals are vacant in the ‘Saptarishi Mandal’ as the seven statues of India’s greatest sages have been taken away for repair and reinforcement. Local authorities said these will ultimately be replaced with new statues made out of stone, as per chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s orders.
Six of the seven statues had fallen in a gust of wind in May, prompting the Congress to go up in arms by accusing the state government of corruption and “not even sparing the gods”.
Local residents, however, are aware of the politics over the matter. Work is on at a hectic pace to extend the Mahakal Corridor under the second phase of the project and some are saying it will be completed before the upcoming elections.
“Look at the entire corridor… coming here feels as if we are visiting heaven and it is so spiritual and beautiful. The opposition made a lot of noise about the statues but we hear they will be reinstalled soon,” said Lal Chand Jangde, who has come to visit with his entire family.
The statues that collapsed were made of fibre-reinforced plastic and their pedestal had not been cemented to retain their beauty. The Congress said it showed a shoddy job had been done and, in fact, accused the BJP of not taking forward the project the way the Kamal Nath-led government had envisaged it when it first allotted money for it.
The BJP said the project became a reality under Chouhan’s tenure with work being fast-tracked after tenders were issued under this regime. But in Ujjain, the controversy matters.
Ujjain district is closely contested and, in 2018, the Congress won four out of seven seats while the BJP won three. The missing statues of maharishis Bhardwaj, Vishwamitra, Gautam, Jamadagni, Kashyap among others, continues to be a rallying point for the grand old party.
But the BJP feels that fast-tracking the second phase of the project – taking the total cost to Rs 800 crore – will make the corridor grander and help put the controversy behind. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the project worth Rs 350 crore last October, the state government wants to push ahead with the second phase.
