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Race On To Cover India Dalit Icon Mayawati's Statues
BBC NEWS, INDIA
January 10, 2012: Officials in India's Uttar Pradesh state are struggling to cover the statues of Chief Minister Mayawati and her party symbol - an elephant. The Election Commission has ordered the statues must stay covered until the end of assembly polls in March as they might influence voters. Truckloads of cloth and plastic sheets are being used to cover the statues.
Ms Mayawati is famous for building statues of herself and other icons of her low-caste Dalit community. In two parks in the state capital, Lucknow, and Noida, a suburb of Delhi, there are nearly a dozen statues of Mayawati and more than 75 stone elephants.
The government has been ordered to cover the statues by Wednesday evening. Under election rules, portraits and calendars bearing photographs of the chief minister must be removed from government offices ahead of elections.
'Elephantine problem'
On Monday, workers labored to cover the statues some of which are almost 15 feet (4.6 metres) tall. "It is an elephantine problem to drape these statues," Associated Press quoted Ramesh Shukla, a government officer overseeing the operations in Lucknow.
On Sunday, officials in Noida ran out of plastic sheets to cover the statues, after which they ordered 1,500 meters to avoid falling short.
The Election Commission order was delivered to the state authorities on Sunday and officials said, "it will be fully executed" by the Wednesday evening deadline.
Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi has said the covering up should be completed "at the earliest".
Ms Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has termed the order as "one-sided and against natural justice". Several other opposition parties also criticized it, saying the order was "impractical".
On Monday, Mr Quraishi said the criticism was "ill-informed". "I am surprised this order has been taken as something unusual. There is a model code of conduct which says there should be a level-playing field for all candidates and parties," he told the NDTV channel. "The code says nobody will get an unfair advantage. Government and public property will not be used for political gain. If portraits have to be removed, it is because it is on public property. Statues are big and they give advantage to the concerned person. The criticism is ill-informed."
'Shameful'
Huge numbers of statues commissioned by Ms Mayawati can be seen in Lucknow and other towns and cities of Uttar Pradesh. Critics accuse her of self-glorification. She accuses them of conspiring against her.
In September, leaked US diplomatic cables said Ms Mayawati had sent an empty private jet to fetch a pair of sandals from Mumbai - a charge she strongly denied.
Ms Mayawati rules over Uttar Pradesh, one of India's most deprived states with a high crime rate and poor health indicators. Critics have described her spending on statues and memorials as “shameful”. Statues of political leaders are generally put up posthumously, but Ms Mayawati says that belief is outdated.
