By Express News Service
BHOPAL: Congress leader Ajay Singh has questioned Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about the “great contributions of his sons,” which have prompted the naming of two parks in Budhni after them.
The leader has alleged that a park named after the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been renamed after the Chief Minister’s elder son Kartikey Singh Chouhan.
It is to be noted that Budhni is the Chief Minister’s assembly constituency.
“The role of independent India’s first PM in the country’s independence and nation’s rebuilding is peerless. Where does Kartikey (CM’s son) stand in front of Nehruji’s contribution to the nation, has he (Kartikey) become bigger than the country’s first PM,” former Leader of Opposition (LoP) Ajay Singh said on Saturday evening.
“If the local municipality in Budhni renamed the park out of flattery to the CM, he should’ve intervened and stopped them. It’s not just that Nehru Udyan has been renamed Kartikey Udyan, but the local municipality named another park in the same Budhni town after the CM’s younger son Kunal. Can the MP CM tell us about the great contributions of his two sons, which have prompted the naming of the two parks in Budhni after them? This trend of naming public properties after living individuals is really dangerous,” Singh added.
However, state BJP spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi tried to play down the matter, “What is the objection, if local people in Budhni named those parks out of affection? The former LoP is seeing everything from the Congress’s perspective. He sees Nehru, Firoz Gandhi and Indira Gandhi everywhere and his (Singh’s) party believes that everything should be named after its leaders.”
The senior state Congress leader has raised the issue more than a decade after the park was actually renovated and renamed Kartikey Udyan. The other park which is named Kunal Park is a recent construction.
The two parks have a 500-metre distance between them.
The Nehru Udyan-turned-Kartikey Udyan also houses a replica of Ashoka’s lion capital.
According to former municipal councillor Sanjay Sharma, who is the lone Congress leader to have raised the same issue, the Nehru Udyan was built in Budhni by the local urban body in the 1980s.
Then, the Congress government led by Motilal Vora was in power and Budhni was represented by the same party’s Chouhan Singh in the Vidhan Sabha.
The park, which was once lush, has now become unseemly as it is used as a venue to host private events including weddings.
“It was in 2012, while the present CM was in power, that the local municipality rejuvenated the Nehru Udyan, by spending lakhs of rupees. The rejuvenated park was since then known as Kartikey Udyan. Barring me and some local Congress cadres, nobody else opposed the renaming of the park in the name of CM’s elder son at that time,” Sharma told this newspaper on Sunday.
CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is the fifth-time sitting BJP MLA from Budhni seat of Sehore district, which also houses his native village Jait.
The Congress had earlier attacked the BJP-led government at the Centre over the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society.
BHOPAL: Congress leader Ajay Singh has questioned Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about the “great contributions of his sons,” which have prompted the naming of two parks in Budhni after them.
The leader has alleged that a park named after the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been renamed after the Chief Minister’s elder son Kartikey Singh Chouhan.
It is to be noted that Budhni is the Chief Minister’s assembly constituency. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
“The role of independent India’s first PM in the country’s independence and nation’s rebuilding is peerless. Where does Kartikey (CM’s son) stand in front of Nehruji’s contribution to the nation, has he (Kartikey) become bigger than the country’s first PM,” former Leader of Opposition (LoP) Ajay Singh said on Saturday evening.
“If the local municipality in Budhni renamed the park out of flattery to the CM, he should’ve intervened and stopped them. It’s not just that Nehru Udyan has been renamed Kartikey Udyan, but the local municipality named another park in the same Budhni town after the CM’s younger son Kunal. Can the MP CM tell us about the great contributions of his two sons, which have prompted the naming of the two parks in Budhni after them? This trend of naming public properties after living individuals is really dangerous,” Singh added.
However, state BJP spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi tried to play down the matter, “What is the objection, if local people in Budhni named those parks out of affection? The former LoP is seeing everything from the Congress’s perspective. He sees Nehru, Firoz Gandhi and Indira Gandhi everywhere and his (Singh’s) party believes that everything should be named after its leaders.”
The senior state Congress leader has raised the issue more than a decade after the park was actually renovated and renamed Kartikey Udyan.
The other park which is named Kunal Park is a recent construction.
The two parks have a 500-metre distance between them.
The Nehru Udyan-turned-Kartikey Udyan also houses a replica of Ashoka’s lion capital.
According to former municipal councillor Sanjay Sharma, who is the lone Congress leader to have raised the same issue, the Nehru Udyan was built in Budhni by the local urban body in the 1980s.
Then, the Congress government led by Motilal Vora was in power and Budhni was represented by the same party’s Chouhan Singh in the Vidhan Sabha.
The park, which was once lush, has now become unseemly as it is used as a venue to host private events including weddings.
“It was in 2012, while the present CM was in power, that the local municipality rejuvenated the Nehru Udyan, by spending lakhs of rupees.
The rejuvenated park was since then known as Kartikey Udyan. Barring me and some local Congress cadres, nobody else opposed the renaming of the park in the name of CM’s elder son at that time,” Sharma told this newspaper on Sunday.
CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is the fifth-time sitting BJP MLA from Budhni seat of Sehore district, which also houses his native village Jait.
The Congress had earlier attacked the BJP-led government at the Centre over the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) Society.
