MUMBAI: The Congress and the NCP in Maharashtra are at loggerheads on a proposed plan to build a Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial on an artificial island off the coast of Mumbai marine drive.
On Wednesday, the state had shelved the plan to construct a massive Shivaji memorial, touted to be taller than the Statue of Liberty, on an artificial island off the coast of Mumbai. However, the same government said the project was very much alive.
Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, of the NCP, gave the first statement on this, while, in the Assembly, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan made a second one effectively nagating the earlier statement.
Pawar had said that due to the problems in obtaining approvals from Union Environment Ministry to make an artificial island, the state would constitute a committee to scout for alternative site for the memorial.
Later, Chavan said that the state government was still committed to building the memorial. He was trying individually to get necessary clearances from the Union Environment Ministry for it. In 2008, the state government had announced the plan to construct a 309-foot Shivaji statue in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Mumbai Marine drive.