Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday heaped praise on the unveiling of the bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, at the central courtyard of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Hours later, the BJP used Tharoor's admiration to jab his party Congress, claiming that the party was against the move.
“Sad that some in Congress put Lutyens above Rajaji Videshi above Swadeshi Colonial above Bharatiya,” a part of BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla's post on X read.
He was referring to Tharoor's latest post welcoming the unveiling of Rajagopalachari's statue at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Tharoor reacted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's X post and said he admired Rajaji's liberal economics and support for free enterprise, adding that his values were one without “communal bigotry”.
“It is sad that there are so few left to follow him today,” a part of Tharoor's post read.
The bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the first and only Indian Governor General of Independent India, was unveiled at the Rashtrapati Bhavan by President Droupadi Murmu on Monday. The statue replaced the bust of Edwin Lutyens, who was a British architect.
In his post Poonawalla also cited People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti's criticism of the move and said that the different views on the matter showed that the Congress and the INDIA bloc were “split over Lutyens”.
Mufti had reacted to a post by the great-grandson of Edwin Lutyens who expressed his disappointment with the bust being replaced. “Sad to read that the bust of Lutyens (my great-grandfather) is to be removed from the presidential palace he designed in Delhi. Here I am with it last year. I wondered at the time why his name had been removed from the plinth,” Matt Ridley wrote, sharing an old picture of himself with Lutyens' bust.
Reacting to the post, Iltija Mufti questioned the Lutyens bust's removal and slammed the “constant obsession” with wiping off India's colonial past. “How does it help India to continue with this warped misplaced sense of anger towards its history? This constant obsession of wiping off the ‘colonial hangover’? Lutyens makes Delhi what it is. You cannot efface heritage or history by removing busts & plaques. Most of India’s architectural marvels are British & Mughal. Big deal!,” Mufti wrote.
Rajaji's statue was placed at the Grand Open Staircase near Ashok Mandap opposite to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Monday, replacing the bust of Lutyens, who designed the Rashtrapati Bhavan and many other government buildings in New Delhi.
"This initiative is part of a series of steps being taken towards shedding the vestiges of colonial mindset and embracing, with pride, the richness of India's culture, heritage, timeless traditions and honouring those who served Bharat Mata with their extraordinary contributions," the President's handle said in a post.
Curated by Aisha Patel
