Amreli: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s imposing statue in Gujarat has not been built to “belittle” former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Speaking at an election rally in Amreli, Gujarat, Modi said though the Congress says Patel was their leader, no leader of that party has visited the statue so far. “Don’t you feel proud when the Statue of Unity and Gujarat’s name appear when you search for the world’s tallest statue on Google?
“I have not built Sardar Patel’s statue to belittle Pandit Nehru. Patel’s stature is so tall that you don’t have to try too hard to make others look small,” Modi said in his speech, most of which was in Gujarati. The ‘Statue of Unity’, dedicated to Sardar Patel, was unveiled by Modi on October 31 last year at Sadhu Bet island on Narmada river.
The 182-metre tall statue was built at a cost of Rs2,389 crore. Modi also said his government has managed to contain terrorism to only “two and a half” districts in Jammu and Kashmir and that no bomb blast took place elsewhere in the country in the last five years. He blamed policies of the Congress-led governments for the Kashmir issue remaining unresolved.
“In the past, bomb blasts used to happen at regular intervals, be it Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kashi and Jammu. But, have you heard (of) a single blast in the last five years? Don’t you think it’s a service to the nation? Are you not feeling secure now?” he asked the gathering. “Terrorism has been contained to only two and a half districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
There is absolutely no problem in other parts of that state also. There was about 75% per cent voter turnout during the recent panchayat polls in Kashmir and not a single incident of violence was reported,” he said. Targeting the Congress, he sought to know what it did after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack when it was in power.
