A decade after BSP chief Mayawati’s term as Uttar Pradesh chief minister saw “hundreds of crores” of public funds spent on statues of herself and BSP’s party symbol, the elephant, the decision has returned to haunt her with the Supreme Court asking her to refund the money. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, while hearing a 2009 PIL filed against the state government and Mayawati, observed: “Madam Mayawati, reimburse to the exchequer public money you spent on the elephants. We are of the tentative view that you should pay the public money from your pocket.”
The bench said it will adjudicate the issue and posted the case to April 2 for final hearing. The Mayawati government allocated money from the state budget for 2008-09 and 2009-10 for the projects and it is alleged that money to the tune of £200 million was spent. The PIL seeks direction to restrain the state government from misusing public funds for political gains. The petitioner alleged that 90% of the budget of the UP cultural department was used for the purpose.
“Hundreds of crores of public money was spent by the government of Uttar Pradesh for personal glorification by erecting statues particularly of leaders who are presently (the reference was in 2009) in power. Sixty elephant statues were installed in a park at a cost of £5.22 million and it is not only wastage of public money but also contrary to circulars issued by the Election Commission,” petitioner Ravi Kant said in his PIL.
