On the final day of the auctioning of a wide range of gifts received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a wooden replica of Ashok Stambh fetched Rs 13 lakh while a Lord Shiva statue was sold for Rs 10 lakh.
The money raised by the auctioning of gifts will be sent to PM Modi’s flagship scheme ‘Namami Gange’ aimed at rejuvenating river Ganga, PMO said in a statement.
The auction was organised in two phases, first was a physical auctioning held in the first week of January at the National Gallery of Modern Art for two days followed by the second phase where an e-auction was held on the website pmmementos.gov.in. During the fortnight auction, 1800 mementoes were sold, PMO said.
According to the statement, Lord Shiva statuette had a base price of Rs 5000, while the Ashok Stambh was set at Rs 4000. A traditional “Horai”, received from Majuli, Assam which had a base price of Rs. 2000/- was auctioned for Rs. 12 lakh. A memento entitled “Divinity” received from SGPC, Amritsar, which had a base price of Rs. 10,000 was auctioned for Rs 10.1 lakh, a statue of Gautam Buddha was auctioned for Rs. 7 lakh, while a traditional brass statue of a lion, received from Sushil Koirala, former Prime Minister of Nepal, was auctioned for Rs 5.20 lakh.
Earlier, on the first day of the physical auction, among the 50 items auctioned in the first hour, 10 had the Prime Minister’s picture and four of the 12th-century Lingayat philosopher and social reformer Basaveshwara — presented to him by members of BJP Karnataka unit. The remaining were knick-knacks, like a wooden bullock cart, a metallic lotus, and a wall clock with all 12 postures of Surya Namaskar.
