MP Congress slams move to shift Mahatma's memorial

The Congress in Madhya Pradesh today strongly criticised the move to shift a memorial housing urns with ashes of Mahatma Gandhi and his wife Kasturba from Rajghat in Barwani district, calling it a "national shame".
The memorial was dismantled by the district administration and temporarily relocated to a nearby place to avoid its submergence.
The raising of height and the closing of the gates of Sardar Sarovar Patel dam in Gujarat raised concerns about submergence of large tracts of land in Dhar, Barwani, Khargone and Alirajpur districts.
Hence, the urns were shifted around Wednesday midnight to a location 4km away from the original site. Barwani collector Tejaswi Naik said a grand memorial would be built at the new site.

However, the move invited strong criticism from the opposition Congress.
Leader of Opposition in Assembly Ajay Singh termed it as a "national shame" and said it amounted to running "bulldozers" over the memories of the Father of the Nation.

He said the dam height was raised to benefit Gujarat.
Singh said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, instead of focusing on rehabilitating affected people, was spending his energy on demolishing the memorial.
Congressmen, led by state unit president Arun Yadav, Singh, MLAs Bala Bachchan and Jaivardhan Singh, among others, staged a protest in Barwani town on the memorial issue and addressed a meeting.

In a related development, Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar continued her indefinite fast at Chikhida in Dhar district for the second day demanding rehabilitation of people displaced in Madhya Pradesh due to closure of Sardar Sarovar dam's gates last month.
After the meeting in Barwani, Congress leaders met Patkar and extended their support to her agitation.