New Delhi, January 15
In a big relief to ‘BSP’ supremo and former Chief Minister Mayawati, the Supreme Court today disposed of a petition filed in 2009 against the UP government’s budget for installing statues of the party’s election symbol ‘Elephant’ and statues of herself for personal glory. An inquiry was sought into the alleged expenditure of over Rs 2,000 crore on planting. This amount was spent when Mayawati was the Chief Minister of UP. Mayawati got this relief today on her 69th birthday.
A bench of Justice BV Nagaratna and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma while deciding the petitions filed by two lawyers Ravi Kant and Sukumar said that most of their arguments have become futile. The Supreme Court took cognizance of the fact that the Election Commission has already issued guidelines in this matter and the installation of statues, which have already been installed, cannot be stopped. The Public Interest Litigation claimed that during Mayawati’s tenure as Chief Minister, an amount of Rs 2,000 crore was used from the state’s 2008-09 and 2009-10 budgets to erect statues of the BSP supremo and the party’s election symbol elephant at various locations. was The petitioners had argued that the installation of 60 elephant statues at a cost of Rs 52.2 crore was not only a waste of government money but was also against the orders issued by the Election Commission.
