Who will shift Mahatma Gandhi’s statue?

AHMEDABAD: Just who will shift Mahatma Gandhi’s statue to his new address? Having spent nearly 50 years at the Income Tax Crossroads in the city — an iconic location symbolising Gandhiji’s fight against unjust British taxation — the statue will be shifted to a new location at Juna Vadaj Circle or Dandi Chowk, as it came beneath a flyover.

But the seven Gandhian establishments, which had earlier made the request of shifting the statue to the new location, are now befuddled by the request which has come from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Last week, the civic body suggested that the project of shifting — including the engineering bit — be accomplished by the institutions themselves.

The statue was installed at the Income Tax Crossroads following an AMC standing committee resolution in 1969 to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of the Mahatma. The statue was made by a renowned sculptor Kanti Patel.

“There have been civil cases and court rulings and protocol involved in matters of shifting of statues of iconic leaders. The AMC must examine them before allowing the Gandhian institutions to take up the job,” says a senior member of one of the Gandhian institutions.

A Rs 60-crore 805-metre-long flyover on Ashram Road that stretches from Gujarat Vidyapith to Popular House building is on the verge of completion at the Income-Tax junction.

The Gandhian institutions had requested the AMC to shift the statue as the flyover seemed to overshadowing the statue. The Gandhian institutions — Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (SAPMT), Gujarat Harijan Sevak Sangh, Gujarat Khadi Gramodyog Mandal, Sabarmati Harijan Ashram trust, Sabarmati Ashram Gaushala Trust, Gujarat Vidyapith and Navjivan Trust — had written to AMC commissioner, seeking to shift the statue to Dandi Chowk. Architect Neelkanth Chhaya has designed the new location for the statue.