Shivaji statue collapse: Fadnavis spreading fake narratives, says Khera

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said on Sunday that the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s statue in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district has broken the hearts of people in the country who draw inspiration from the legendary warrior king. Addressing a press conference here, Khera accused Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of spreading fake narratives over the incident.

“The Mughals did not succeed in breaking Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. But this corrupt government has done what Mughals could never do,” he said.

Hitting out at Fadnavis for claiming that late prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had shown Shivaji Maharaj in a “poor light” in his book ‘The Discovery of India’, Khera said the BJP leader should stop spreading fake narratives.

“Fadnavis should answer when he read the book. Nehru had revised his first edition and written to historians in 1936 to send him inputs to make necessary revisions. He was an intellectual giant and had accepted that the first edition was written while he was in jail and had no access to reference material,” Khera said. Just like Lord Ram belongs to all, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj belongs to the entire country, the Congress leader said.

Khera said famous artist Nanasaheb Karmakar took seven years to make a sculpture of Shivaji Maharaj and Nehru conferred Padma Shri on him for his work.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s apology over the incident, Khera said, “The country rejects PM’s apology which has been made arrogantly. We want to know what action has been taken against the guilty.”

The statue of the 17th-century Maratha warrior king collapsed at Rajkot fort in Malvan tehsil, some 480 kilometres from here, collapsed on August 26. It was unveiled by PM Modi on December 4, 2023, on the occasion of Navy Day. State Congress president Nana Patole said the mention of Shivaji Maharaj “looting Surat” has been made by historians and not the Congress party. “Today we have a government which is looting Maharashtra,” He said. Earlier in the day, leaders from the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) marched from the iconic Hutatma Chowk to Gateway of India in south Mumbai to protest the statue collapse. They slammed the BJP-led Union and state governments, with Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray calling PM Modi’s apology one “smacking of arrogance” and NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar attributing the collapse to corruption.