KOLKATA: Amid a raging controversy over the national emblem cast atop the new Parliament building, TMC MP Jawhar Sircar on Saturday urged the Centre to carry out a 3D computerised check on the freshly cast emblem to check for deviations from the original Ashokan Lion symbol.
In a letter to Union Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Sircar said the "error is now foisted far too high to be swept under the carpet" and sought to know the details of the process of selecting the artist, the brief given and the cost of the artwork.
The former union culture secretary also sought to know whether the artwork was cleared by the Delhi Urban Arts Commission and the Heritage Conservation Committee as mandated "by the Supreme Court in its order January 6, 2021" regarding the new Parliament building.
Earlier this week, as controversy over the alleged distortion of the national emblem erupted, Sircar shared on Twitter two images of the original emblem and the one unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The TMC Rajya Sabha MP claimed that the original Ashokan Lions are "graceful, regally confident" while the new ones are "snarling, unnecessarily aggressive and disproportionate."
Faced with a barrage of criticism from experts and opposition leaders, Puri had said those opposing the massive national emblem cast atop the new Parliament building need to appreciate the "impact of angle, height and scale when comparing the two structures".
He had also claimed that the bronze cast of the national emblem atop the new parliament building is a "scaled up" version of the original Sarnath emblem.
Not buying his logic, Sircar in his letter said there was no such controversy with the "mammoth emblem on top of the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru in the last 65 years and maybe your officials could examine why and how it succeeded."
Sircar said the views of the government and the opposition parties on whether the new sculpture is the exact copy of the original are sharply divergent.
There are several other deviations from the original Sarnath model and these could easily be proved by the comparison of accurate 3D images, he said in the letter.
"It is our earnest request that you undertake such a computerised check and satisfy yourself and those who are appalled at the distortions, once and for all. In fact, 3D computerised modelling could have ensured an exact copy of the original that the artists commissioned by you for this exercise could, quite sadly, not do," the letter read.
An exact replica of the national emblem does not either permit human error or artistic license, Sircar said.
Government representatives admitted that the view from the ground level tends to make the emblem look different from the original and all citizens, barring a select few, will have to view it from the ground only, he said.
Sircar said, "Architecture is an outstanding discipline and could perhaps minimise these 'perspective distortions'".