President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for a memorial and cultural centre dedicated to B.R. Ambedkar in Lucknow.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi later tweeted that the project would “further popularise the ideals” of Ambedkar among the youth, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati questioned the timing of the launch, which is a few months ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
The BSP is not against building any centre in Ambedkar’s name but doing all this now for “election greed” was an absolute deception, she said.
“If the U.P. government had done this earlier, then today the President would have been inaugurating this centre and not laying its foundation stone,” Ms. Mayawati said.
Besides being a social icon for millions of people, Ambedkar is also a sensitive topic in U.P., where Dalits form more than one-fifth of the population. Over the years, all parties, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have made concerted efforts to appropriate his legacy though symbols and memorials. These are understood to be attempts to woo the sizeable number of Dalit voters in the State.
Mr. Modi lauded the Uttar Pradesh government for “taking the lead” in the effort to popularise the ideals of Ambedkar.
President Kovind laid the foundation stone for the cultural centre, which will come up in Aishbagh, at an event at the Lok Bhawan here. He real success was in building a society and nation according to the values and ideals of Ambedkar.
The President said the U.P. government’s initiative in building the cultural centre was commendable.
On the completion of its construction, the cultural centre would play an effective role in educating all the citizens, especially the younger generation, with the ideals and objectives of Ambedkar, he said.
The State cabinet last week approved the project, which will be built on 5,493 square metres of land. The project will have a 25-feet high statue of Ambedkar. The centre would cost an estimated ₹45 crore and include an auditorium with a capacity of 750 persons, a research centre, and a museum.
