Decreasing the height of Shivaji's statue to make Sardar Patel's statue look taller is 'narrow and distorted mindset', the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana.
'That journey across India has changed me forever.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off the 'Run for Unity' in New Delhi on Friday on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is being commemorated as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas.
'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
Amid a controversy over the cricket stadium in Ahmedabad being renamed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government on Wednesday said the name change involves only the Motera stadium and the entire sports complex continues to be named after Sardar Patel.
Prime Minister Narendra D Modi on Tuesday paid floral tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the Statue of Unity at Ekta Nagar in Gujarat's Narmada on the birth anniversary of the country's first home minister which is celebrated as National Unity Day. In New Delhi, Congress MPs Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi paid homage to Indira Gandhi on the 39th anniversary of the late prime minister's assassination.
Nearly 3,400 labourers and 250 engineers are working round-the-clock at the site of the statue at Sadhu Bet island on Narmada river. The 182-metre tall statue will be unveiled by the PM on birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, the first home minister of the country.
At 182 metres (392 ft), the proposed Sardar Patel Monument, coined as 'Statue of Unity', will be double the height of New York city's famed 'Statue of Liberty' (93 metres), five times the height of the statue of 'Christ The Redeemer' in Rio de Janeiro (39.6 metres) and one and a half times of the Sardar Sarovar Dam (122 metres) itself.
A post written in Hindi on the handle "RaGa4India" at 9.52 am on September 8 stated that the statue "can fall anytime as cracks have started appearing on it".
US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton poses with Indian-Americans beneath the Sardar Patel statue at the Albert Palace in New Jersey during a fundraiser on Thursday.
The Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest statue, will be nearly twice as tall as New York's famed Statue of Liberty. Check out all that you need to know about India's tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel resolved issues of merger of other princely states, but 'one person' could not resolve the Kashmir issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, in a veiled attack on India's first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
In the manifesto released on Saturday, the Congress also promised unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000 per month, Rs 2,000 pension to divyangs, widows, senior citizens and needy women, and waiver of loans of up to Rs 3 lakh of all fishermen, among other things.
When the prime minister was offering floral tributes to Patel, flower petals were also showered on the world's tallest statue by an Indian Air Force helicopter.
The work order for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project 'Statue of Unity' - the world's tallest statue of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was issued by the Gujarat government on Monday, to leading engineering company Larsen and Toubro (L&T).
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday claimed a "Godhra-like" incident may take place during the "return journey" of the large number of people expected to converge at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh from across the nation for the inauguration of the Ram temple.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah said Pakistan would not have been holding a part of Kashmir and Article 370 would not have existed had Sardar Vallabhai Patel handled the Kashmir issue.
The viewing gallery, at a height of 135 metres, has a grill frontage which allows winds to blow in water during heavy rains, said officials.
The Rs 1,989 crore statue being built to honour Sardar Vallabhai Patel has taken 3,000 labourers nearly 5 years to complete.
Despite criticism from the ruling party and Twitterati, Spandana remained defiant.
Vallabhbhai Patel's great claim to fame originated from his steely leadership of a struggle against a repressive regime, a good three decades before the achievement of states unification, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
"We are relocating these crocodiles just for the safety of tourists. There is no specific instruction to us about any seaplane service" an official said.
"Based on this consensus, the process of disengagement is almost complete. Our efforts will be to take the matter beyond disengagement; but for that, we will have to wait a little longer," he added.
As a Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party war of words broke out over Sardar Patel's legacy, Congress on Thursday portrayed Narendra Modi with his "designer clothes and branded glasses" as a contrast to India's Iron Man, "who saved Muslims during 1947 riots" and was "humility personified".
'Modi's charisma may have weakened as last year's Lok Sabha poll results showed but in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar, it has not waned.' 'Minus a strong BJP government at the Centre for another decade and more, there is apprehension that an anti-Hindutva government could reverse many of the ideological gains that the Modi dispensation has achieved through its three terms,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Most Indians know very little about Patel which is a great shame.'
In less than an hour, seven of the top 10 India trends were fuelled by wishes pouring in for Prime Minister Modi from different quarters.
'During the Congress rule, the solicitor general had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court, stating that the government would side with the sentiments of the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a razed temple, where the mosque was built'
"I had said on the soil of Bahraich that glorification of foreign invaders should be stopped and that the national heroes must be honoured. And 1,000 years ago, such a tale of courage and bravery was written by Maharaja Suheldev on this very soil of Bahraich," Adityanath said.
Glimpses of the spectacular drone show over the Sabarmati riverfront as Ahmedabad prepares for the National Games 2022 opening ceremony
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to scuttle the possibility of his party's alliance with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray ahead of civic polls.
The budget for the 'Shiv Smarak' has risen 35 times since it was first conceived.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Saturday hit back at Rahul Gandhi for his remarks that Mahatma Gandhi was killed because of its ideology, saying Congress should not give sermons to others as it itself is pursuing a thinking that is opposite to that of the Father of the Nation and Sardar Patel.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday raked up another controversy over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, with L K Advani quoting a book to allege that then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru called his home minister a "total communalist" when the latter suggested that army be sent to take over a defiant Hyderabad State after Independence.
In a video shared by officials, Modi, wearing a BSF uniform, can be seen offering sweets to the personnel on board a patrol vessel.
Delhi authorities are taking steps to deploy langur mimics and put up cut-outs of the simians at vantage points to scare away monkeys during the G20 Summit in the national capital.
The Sardar Patel Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad is spread over 63 acres, with a seating capacity of 1.10 lakh people. It overtakes Melbourne Cricket Ground, which can accommodate 90,000 people.
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.
Over 29 lakh tourists visited the Statue of Unity, located near the Sardar Sarovar Dam, since it was inaugurated and this generated a revenue of Rs 82.51 crore, the government had told the assembly in December last year
While the 'Statue of Unity', presently the world's tallest, installed in Gujarat's Narmada district on the 143rd birth anniversary of Patel, is 182 metres high, the one to come up in Ayodhya will be 221 metres.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances