Gandhinagar: Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel today said Congress leader Ahmed Patel tweeted about presence of foreign workers (Chinese) at the statue of unity construction site in Central Gujarat with an intention to please party president Rahul Gandhi.

Addressing a press conference here Patel who had yesterday hit out at Rahul Gandhi for his ‘Made-in-China’ remark about the statue, today said that Congress party and its leaders had always with one pretext of the other opposed Sardar Patel. ‘And now when the world’s tallest statue of his was nearing completion, instead of feeling proud, they were trying to put it in controversy. Yesterday Rahul Gandhi created a controversy and now it seems that all the leaders of the party were in to a competition of sorts to please him by giving statements in his support. Ahmedbhai has also done exactly the same to please Rahul Gandhi,’ he said.

‘Ahmed Patel is from Bharuch in Gujarat which is close to the site of the statue during the construction of which initially around 1500 and later 4000 skilled, semi skilled and non-skilled Indian workers got employment. So far creation of 25,66,500 manpower days have been done. Around 225 Indian engineers also created work to the tune of 1,66,666 manpower days. So far wages and salaries to mostly Indian workers and engineers to the tune of Rs 500 crores have been paid. Apart from these for the 1.70 lakh cubic feet cement used in the project and around 24,000 ton steel, all of which has been produced in Indian cement plants, steel plants and rolling mills. Thousands of trucks have been used for transportation of materials including greet, sand. Thousands of people in the country have got direct or indirect benefit. Indian engineers have in course of this project received global level experience of building a gigantic structure, ‘ the Dy CM said.

‘But this is seemingly not visible to Ahmed Patel and other Congress leaders. We have already made it clear that less than 5% of the material used in the project was from foreign country and for fitting of such material it was natural that some workers would come. Less than 200 workers from outside had come against total 4,000 workers. Ahmed Patel is seeing few foreign workers only and tweeting,’ he said.

‘ Now that PM Narendra Modi is to dedicate the statue to the nation on October 31, I warn congress that if it tried to insult or put in to controversy such a project of Sardar Patel, then people of Gujarat and rest of India won’t tolerate it,’ he said.

Are they Chinese workers or Chinese tourists ? pic.twitter.com/5CmTYV58iI

— Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) September 27, 2018

Yesterday Congress chief Rahul Gandhi created a dispute, after which Congress leaders seem in competition to please Rahul Gandhi. Today Congress leader and a Gujarati, Ahmed Patel has tweeted and put a photo in which two foreign nationals are working with statue of unity in background. I want to ask Ahmedbhai that he is from Gujarat and statue is in making near his native place Bharuch.

Ahmed Patel, who was also the political advisor of Rahul Gandhi’s mother Sonia Gandhi, has in a tweet with pictures of a few Chinese workers near the project site written, ‘Are they Chinese workers or Chinese tourists?’

The Dy CM had earlier yesterday also hit out at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his statement about the statue of unity of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel being erected on an island in river Narmada in Central Gujarat as the tallest statue in the world, saying that his terming it as ‘made in China’ was baseless and low class politics showing his ignorance and lack of knowledge and study about the project.

He had said that the statute was being built by a reputed Indian company L&T after winning a global tender. ‘Most of the materials used for it including 70,000 ton cement, 18500 ton reinforced steel, 6000 ton structured steel, 1700 ton copper has also been taken from India including the collection of old iron equipment used for cultivation collected from farmers all across India. Only 1700 ton bronze meant for giving outer coat to the statue has been procured from China as none of the Indian companies supply it. If taking a small amount of the material which is not available in India from outside meant that it was made in China then we can assume that Rahul Gandhi is also an Italian because some portion of his blood was of Italian origin and though it is none of my subject but Congress should also think why it has made a person with mixed blood as its president,’ he had said.

Rahul Gandhi in an election rally in Chitrakoot yesterday said that the 182 meters tall statue of unity would have ‘Made in-China’ written on it like many other items including shoes that we use.

DeshGujarat