Jalandhar: BJP and Congress leaders here are trading charges over a bronze statue of Sardar Patel, which went missing last year from the store room of Jalandhar Municipal Corporation. Congress leaders alleged that BJP raised the issue during the Lok Sabha polls and later forgot and demanded a probe.
On demand of forming a committee to probe the incident, Jalandhar Mayor Sunil Jyoti said, "There is no point in forming a committee now as the statue is missing for more than 15 years before I became Mayor. Where would we search for it now?"
Senior Congress leader of Punjab, Virendra Sharma alleged that the BJP "hijacked" Sardar Patel for political gain but the leader is being insulted now. He also said that no FIR has been lodged in this case.
Sharma demanded that state government should not only form a committee to probe the incident but an FIR should also be registered. The statue was installed at the railway station in 1950 after Patel's death. But on railways' opposition it was reinstalled in the DC office of Municipal Corporation.
When they faced difficulties there too, the statue was removed and had been kept in the storeroom since then, before it was found to be missing in November 2013.
