"The affidavit (of the UP Government) is not satisfactory," a bench comprising Justices B N Agrawal and Aftab Alam observed.
The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has complied with its directions and stopped all construction activities at the Kanshi Ram Memorial Sthal in Lucknow. The state government filed an affidavit, denying media reports that it went ahead with the construction activities at the, even after giving an undertaking on September 8 that no further construction will take place.
Telling the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh that "you are playing with fire", the Supreme Court today directed stoppage of all further construction activities at the Kanshi Ram Memorial Sthal in Lucknow, saying its orders cannot be violated.
BSP chief Mayawati removed her nephew Akash Anand from all party posts and said that she will not name her successor till she is alive. In a slew of other significant changes in the BSP leadership announced at a high-level meeting of the party's office-bearers from across the country, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and Ramji Gautam as national coordinators. Mayawati also criticized the budgets of both the central and Uttar Pradesh governments, saying they were "unrealistic" and detached from ground realities.
The top court had on May 7 held that former chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh cannot retain government accommodation after demitting office.
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
Ram V Sutar, 89, has already created more than 200 distinct statues, many of them massive. Now, he is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world's largest statue: A 597-foot tall rendering of Sardar Patel, an independence leader who played a crucial role in uniting India's fractious states.