The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday termed the period of nine years from 2014 to the present, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi being at the helm of affairs, as an era of “cultural rejuvenation”, highlighting efforts ranging from the prominence given to unsung heroes of the freedom struggle to the building of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The Minister of State for Law (Independent Charge), Arjun Ram Meghwal, who also holds additional charge as Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture, held a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi, stating that 231 idols stolen from India had been brought back from different countries since 2014, while only 13 of them had been retrieved in the period from Independence to the BJP Government taking over at the Centre nine years ago. “This shows the speed and scale of the government’s work,” Mr. Meghwal said.
He accused the previous Congress Governments at the Centre of ignoring icons like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and B.R. Ambedkar, and noted that the Modi Government had built the ‘Statue of Unity’ to immortalise India’s first Home Minister, and developed the “panch-teerth” (five pilgrimages) associated with the architect of the Indian Constitution.
