How is BJP's splurge on Sardar Patel's statue any different from Mayawati's similar whims?

The money for the Rs 2,000 crore Sardar Patel statue will after all come from the state treasury

The year was 2011. Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh were round the corner. Mayawati was in Noida at around this time in 2011, to inaugurate the Dalit Prerna Sthals created all over Lucknow, Noida and elsewhere, described by the the Congress as a waste of public money. But the BJP had gone a step further in attacking the former UP Chief Minister for creating these gigantic concrete complexes. At a press conference, Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the people of the state would give a befitting reply to her in the forthcoming polls for "misuse" of public money.

"In democracy, if you say that you can spend the money as per your wishes, the people of the country will certainly raise their voice somewhere. I think the people of the state will surely give a befitting reply to Mayawati in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh polls," Rudy said. He said thousands of crores splurged on parks belonged to the people of Uttar Pradesh.

"We are very amused that the system could hoodwink the highest court of the land to undertake this splurge. We still wonder how it happened. At the end of the day it is public money. The government has lost all accountability," he said, referrring to restrictions put by the Supreme Court on the creation of such complexes.

Now the Gujarat government is doing the same thing. The money for the Rs 2,000 crore Sardar Patel statue will come from the state treasury. It will not be collected from ordinary people, it will be paid for by the tax payers' money. The contribution and collection of iron will also not be done free of cost. Someone will pay to transport the iron (used farmers' implements, etc) and the volunteers, who will go to villages, collect this iron and bring it back to Gujarat. The land on which the statue will be erected will be the government's.

 
Rs 2,000 crore! The sum represents the budget of a small state. It is the size of the fund set up by the Finance Minister in 2013 for urban housing. He also announced Rs 150 crore in the union budget to help take care of the elderly. Imagine if the Rs 2,000 crore had been used for the creation of facilities for the elderly, and named after Sardar Patel? What if a scheme had been launched for tribals in Gujarat, which would reduce the drudgery of tribal women – dying routinely of emphysema – by replacing cooking fuel with an alternative.

Sardar Patel was a truly great man. He laid the foundation of the Indian civil service and his funeral was attended by 10 lakh people. His bluntness and sense of practicality were – for the want of a better word – intensely Gujarati. His memory deserves more than a statue of iron.