Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday praised the unveiling of a bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, in the central courtyard of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Hours later, the BJP used Tharoor’s admiration to strike at its party’s Congress, claiming that the party was against the move.
“Sadly, some in Congress have placed Lutyens above Rajaji Videshi above Swadeshi Colonial above Bharatiya,” part of BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla’s post on X reads.
He was referring to Tharoor’s recent post in which he welcomed the unveiling of Rajagopalachari’s statue at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Tharoor responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post
“Sadly, there are so few people left who follow him today,” part of Tharoor’s post read.
President Draupadi Murmu on Monday unveiled a bust of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, the first and only Indian Governor-General of independent India, at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The statue replaced the bust of Edwin Lutyens, who was a British architect.
In his post, Poonawalla also cited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Ilija Mufti’s criticism of the move and said the different views on the issue showed that the Congress and the India bloc were “divided over Lutyens”.
The Mufti had responded to a post by Edwin Lutyens’ grandson, in which he expressed his disappointment at replacing the bust. Sharing an old photo of himself with the Lutyens bust, Matt Ridley wrote: “Sad to read that the bust of Lutyens (my great-grandfather) will be removed from the Rashtrapati Bhavan he designed in Delhi. And here I was with him last year. I wondered at the time why his name was removed from the plinth.”
In response to the post, Aletia Mufti questioned the removal of Lutyens’ bust and criticized the “ongoing obsession” with erasing India’s colonial past. Mufti wrote: “How does it help India continue with this distorted feeling and anger towards its history? This constant obsession with eradicating the ‘remnants of colonialism’? Lutyens makes Delhi what it is now. You cannot erase heritage or history by removing busts and paintings. Most of the architectural marvels in India are British and Mughal. It is a big deal!”
A statue of Rajaji was placed at the grand open staircase near the Ashok Mandap opposite the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Monday, replacing the bust of Lutyens, who designed the Rashtrapati Bhavan and several other government buildings in New Delhi.
“This initiative is part of a series of steps being taken towards doing away with the remnants of colonial mentality and embracing the richness of India’s culture, heritage and timeless traditions with pride and honoring those who have served Bharat Mata with their extraordinary contributions,” the president’s handle said in a post.
