Mumbai, Aug 29: Under fire over the collapse of a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj statue, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday asserted he would not hesitate to touch the feet of the warrior king 100 times and apologise for the incident if required.
Talking to reporters here, Shinde said the opposition has other issues to do politics on but Shivaji Maharaj, a revered figure in Maharashtra, should be kept out of it.
As the collapse of the statue four days ago in Sindhudurg district continued to generate heat, the state government set up a technical committee to find out reasons for the crash, while members of the ruling Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), led by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, staged silent protests across Maharashtra over the incident.
“Chhatrapati Shivaji is a patron deity of Maharashtra. I am ready to touch his feet 100 times and apologise (for the statue crash). I will not shy away from apologising. Our government functions keeping his (Shivaji’s) ideals in mind,” Shinde insisted.
His remarks come a day after Ajit Pawar apologised to the people of the state for the collapse of the structure which was installed in the coastal district’s Malvan tehsil, around 480km from Mumbai.
The 35-foot statue of the 17th-century Maratha empire founder installed at Rajkot Fort premises collapsed on August 26, nearly nine months after it was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggering a political storm in the state, which is due for polls in the next few months. The state government has pointed out that the project was handled by the Indian Navy. (PTI)
