After elephant statues in UP, roaring controversy over Goa lion sculptures

Panaji: A Goa cabinet minister’s obsession with erecting statues of lions in a public park, is threatening to erupt into a scandal on the lines of BSP chief Mayawati’s controversial decision to install elephant sculptures all over Uttar Pradesh. While the elephant is the official symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the lion is the official emblem of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Goa’s oldest regional party, which Sudin Dhavalikar, the minister in question, represents. The Congress has charged Dhavalikar, the cabinet minister for the Public Works Department, of using his ministry to convert the Kranti maidan, a public park in Ponda, a temple town located 30 kms from Panaji, into MGP’s political playground by installing four statues of lions, each costing Rs 18 lakh, while also alleging a scam in the tendering processes. Dhavalikar however, has claimed that the project is above board and said those opposing it are free to lodge a complaint with the authorities. [caption id=“attachment_1735307” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Dhavilkar says he has done nothing wrong: Image from Wikimedia Commons[/caption] “This is a public park and not Dhavalikar’s political jagir. If he wanted to erect statues, he could have immortalized any freedom fighter or a legend from the area, not his party symbol,” Congress spokesperson Durgadas Kamat told Firstpost. Kamat claimed, that the tender floated for the lions’ sculptures, states that each lion would be sculpted from a granite block and is part of an overall tender for ‘beautification’ of the Kranti maidan, which is pegged at Rs. 4.26 crore. “The estimated cost for the project was Rs 3.63 crore, but it was eventually awarded for Rs. 4.26 crore,” Kamat said, quoting tender documents. “Dhavalikar is trying to give a political facelift to public areas using public funds. We are also approaching the state vigilance department over corruption and inconsistencies in the tendering processes like overpricing. This is a smaller replica of the Mayawati and the elephant statue scam,” Kamat said. The Kranti maidan is one of the rare large open spaces in a fast-developing Ponda town and is used for a host of public engagements ranging from public meetings to religious festivities. The complaint with the vigilance department will be filed on Monday. Some years back, Mayawati as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh had installed over 100 statues of elephants as well as larger than life sculptures of herself in public parks in Noida and Lucknow worth several hundred crore. Mayawati’s elephants had also courted controversy during the 2012 state assembly polls, when the Election Commission of India had ordered that the elephants sculptures in public spaces should be draped and covered, lest be used as political campaign tool. Dhavalikar, who has been in news in recent times over his demand for a ban on bikinis and pubs in Goa, has however rejected allegations of corruption and insists that the controversy is baseless. The entire project he says is as per a plan submitted by a local architect and that his ministry is only executing a plan what has been submitted to it. “PWD is only undertaking the work as per the plan prepared by an architect. There is no misappropriation and anyone is free to approach the vigilance department over the expenditure,” Dhavalikar said, defending the project in which the granite lions are the centre piece. The lions, which are being put up, he said, were not just a symbol of his party, but were an official symbol of the Kadamba dynasty which ruled Goa and adjoining areas in present day north Karnataka for over 300 years from 11th century onwards.