Setting all the tussle-tinged speculations at rest, the State Government has finally stepped in to ensure that the statue of the celebrated Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar is installed at an appropriate place in Haridwar.
Things followed after the Chief Minister Harish Rawat directed a team comprising the district officials headed by State Secretary R Meenakshi Sundaram to ensure the installation of the statue in the holy city at the earliest. After the team inspected the site on Friday it was decided that the statue would be installed in the first week of August with all ceremonial rituals at the CCR Tower premises.
It is believed that things speeded up after the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha intervened in the matter two days ago, writing to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prevail upon the Uttarakhand Government, thus, resolving the impasse over the installation of the statue. Presently, it is standing on the CCR grounds, the polythene sheet covering it so long removed.
Speaking to The Pioneer, DM Haridwar Harbans Singh Chugh said, “Mela Adhikari S Murugeshan and secretary Meenakshi Sundaram visited the site on Friday after which it was decided at a joint meeting that the statue would be installed with proper ritualistic ceremonies inside the Mela control tower premises. CM would unveil it. We have begun the process of making the platform for the same.”
Following protests from the saint fraternity based in Haridwar which had raised objections to placing Tamil poet philosopher Thiruvalluvar’s statue on either the banks of the Ganga in Har Ki Pauri or near the statue of Adi Guru Shankaracharya at Shankaracharya Chowk, the statue was unveiled informally at the state guest house on June 29. Then it was shifted to the mela control room, all covered in polythene sheet, and it was laid on the ground. The Tamil Nadu CM had said in the letter to the PM that the statue remaining unattended as beamed on the television screens had outraged the sentiment of her State.
In an initiative to bring the Tamil poet-saint to the northern India and particularly in Haridwar-the holy city where every religious group is free to found ashrams-the former Bhartiya Janata Party RS MP Tarun Vijay had decided to bring the 12-foot statue to have it installed somewhere in the city. He had contributed Rs 20 lakh from his local area development fund to have the statue made.