By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net,
Lucknow: The ‘covering up’ of stone elephants and statues of Chief Minister (SM) Mayawati began at Lucknow on Tuesday. The statues are being covered in accordance with the directives of the Election Commission of India.
With only two days to complete the herculean task, authorities were on their toes for covering the statues. There are 90 stone elephants and 10 statues of CM Mayawati which had to be covered.
The exercise started with the measurement of the statues in the morning. Amidst the exercise several lensmen reached there to capture the moment. The covering up exercise started with elephants erected in a row at the Samajik Parivartan Sthal. They were covered with yellow tarpauline.
For CM Mayawati’s statues, a steel frame was erected which will be covered with tarpauline. The setting of steel frame was being done till late in the evening. The places where the elephant statues are standing in a row are also being covered by covering them with a steel frame.
Amidst the whole exercise, the cost of the covering up exercise is expected to be around Rs one crore. For covering one elephant nearly 1200 square feet of tarpauline is required while it is even more for the CM Mayawati’s statues.