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By Elisha Fieldstadt and Reuters
The highest statue in the world, honoring the first Indian Deputy Prime Minister and twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, was unveiled on Wednesday.
The "Statue of Unity" in steel and bronze, from a height of 517 meters, erected in the state of Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi resides, represents Vallabhbhai Patel, who has played a role in the unification of the country and its accession to independence.
The $ 400 million fund, which used 7,416,080 cubic feet of cement, 25,000 tons of steel, and 1,700 tons of bronze, came from the federal government, the United States, the United States. State and other institutions.
Modi ordered the construction of the statue while he was chief minister of Gujarat. It took 33 months to build it.
Wednesday was the birthday of Patel, known as the National Unity Day. "Brothers and sisters, this highest statue in the world will be remembered by the world, our future generations, the courage, the strength and the determination of this person," Modi said at the ceremony.
Modi and his party Bharatiya Janata (BJP), which face five national elections and legislative elections scheduled for May, go back in history and offer alternatives to the heroes of the Nehru-Gandhi family, who dominated the Congress.
The BJP said the Congress had deliberately ignored leaders such as Patel, B.R. Ambedkar, who led the drafting of the constitution, and Subhas Chandra Bose, freedom fighter.
The charges are a distortion of history, said Congress, which has ruled India for much of its independence history and is now led by Rahul Gandhi, great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister.
Some political commentators have criticized Modi for his expenses for the statues complex at a time when the Adivasis, the indigenous peoples who exploit the lands acquired for these lands, are in a difficult economic situation and have protested against them.
The next three tallest statues in the world are all Buddha. They are in China, Myanmar and Japan.
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