This story is from July 25, 2021

Two bronze statues of Hindu kings to be ready by October

Two bronze statues of Hindu kings to be ready by October
Statue politics in poll year
Lucknow: The Yogi government has initiated the process to get the two bronze idols ready that the BJP had promised it would install in UP to glorify the Hindu kings, not given their due in the history that is more of Mughal-centric, thus taking the 'politics over statues' ahead.
The state government has given a contract to UP Lalit Kala Akademi for the two statues.
While one would be a 51-foot tall idol of Nishad king Guh with Lord Ram, the two embracing each other and the second, a 40-foot tall statue of warrior king Suheldev mounted on a horse. The former would be installed at Shringverpur, Prayagraj which was the territory of the Nishad king and has remnants of his fort present till date, while the latter would find place at Bahraich.
In all possibilities, the statues would be ready by October and add to the pitch and tempo of politics in the state which would by then have the state assembly election 2022 drawn even closer. The statues are of two such Hindu kings whose legacy has more than one political claimants in the state and a bigger section of the OBC population, Nishads and Rajbhars, in UP consider themselves to be their descendants.
Here, it is also significant that for the first time the state government has given the contract to State Lalit Kala Akademi to make the statues, which shows the government wants the best of the artists to design it. The bids were floated on July 5 and August 2 is the deadline. On August 3, there would be a presentation made by the bidders on the design and structure of the idols. The statues would be ready in three months after the tender was awarded.
“We can say anything on the statues beyond their height and the material that it would be made of only after the presentation is made,” said a senior official in the Akademi. Installing the two statues was the long drawn plan of the BJP. Going back in the past, in February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the statue of King Suheldev of Shravasti in Bahraich on his birth anniversary, virtually. The 11th century warrior king is revered by the Rajbhar and Pasi community, who have a dominant presence in Purvanchal, after Yadavs.

Installing his statue, however, is not the only thing that the BJP would do to woo the community he hailed from. The efforts to claim his legacy started in 2016 itself when his statue was unveiled by the BJP national president Amit Shah in Bahraich along the Indo-Nepal border in February. The Modi government has already released a postal stamp after the king and named a superfast train after him.
One of the major claimants of Suheldev’s legacy is Om Prakash Rajbhar of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) who has his politics centred around Rajbhars. He contested the 2017 UP assembly elections in alliance with the BJP and won four of the eight seats after which he became a minister in the UP government. Not with the BJP anymore, he now leads a front of smaller parties, Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha.
Similarly, the efforts of the BJP to reach out to Nishads by eulogizing Nishadraj is also not new. In May 2019, while campaigning for Lok Sabha election in UP, union home minister Amit Shah, who was the BJP national president at the time, had announced that Yogi government would install the statue of Nishadraj at the place where the `Kewat’ had washed the feet of Lord Ram at Shringverpur, Prayagraj, as per the folklore.
The delay was long enough to prompt the Nishad Party, a political outfit dedicated only to Nishads who, again, have a significant presence in Eastern UP, lay the foundation stone for a 180-feet tall statue of Nishadraj at Shringverpur in April this year. “The fort of Nishadraj in Shringverpur is in shambles. It was Nishadraj who gave his ‘sena’ to Ram for the battle of Lanka. Nishads have been used as a ‘sena’ by political parties only to be dumped later.Time has come when we take this ‘sena’ back from political parties and install the statue on our own,” had said the president of Nishad party, Sanjay Nishad.
Installing statues of the icons is one of the ways of the political parties to partake in their legacy. During elections, it gets on the top priorities of the political parties. Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) would install idols of Phoolan Devi in UP and Bihar. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, on Wednesday, unveiled the statue of former SP leader and a significant Nishad leader Manohar Lal in Unnao.
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