Gandhi-giri in Chhatisgarh

Plans for the proposed office of Chhattisgarh’s excise department in the new capital city include a life-size statue of Mahatma Gandhi at the entrance. Unexceptionable, you would have thought, except that the opposition Congress leaders have strongly opposed the plan.

According to District Congress President Inderchand Dhariwal the statue was inappropriate since Gandhi was opposed to the consumption of liquor, the main excise earner, so there was no logic in installing his statue outside an excise building. Junior excise officers say the plan was the product of a senior officer’s over-enthusiasm.