Not just Mayawati

Most are exercised over Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati spending vast sums of public money building memorials to herself as well as to her late mentor. But a senior journalist, Surya Prakash, has compiled a list of “hundreds of schemes, buildings, airports, housing projects, state and central office buildings, training institutes, bridges, etc.” named after members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. In a petition to the Election Commission, he has said the money spent on these projects ought to be considered a “diversion of taxpayers’ money for individual and party benefit”. He says that, in a country which has so many illiterate persons, naming these after various members of the Nehru-Gandhi clan makes it seem like these are a personal favour from the family.