Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's Statue; a 597ft giant bronze monument has been condemned as a vanity project, and has outraged many in the United Kingdom.
Britain gave more than £1billion to India while it was building the world's tallest Statue of Unity - almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US.
Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘To take £1.1billion in aid from us and then at the same time spend £330million on a statue is a total nonsense and it is the sort of thing that drives people mad.
‘What it proves is that we should not be giving money to India. It is up to them how they spend their money but if they can afford this statue, then it is clearly a country we should not need to be giving aid to.’, said Bone.
According to The Daily Mail, “In the 56 months it took to construct the £330million Statue of Unity, UK taxpayers gave India £1.17billion in foreign aid”
“British aid money did not go directly to building the statue but was spent funding projects that India could have afforded had it not been pouring cash into the 2,000-tonne memorial. British aid money was spent on projects ranging from improving women’s rights to funding solar panels and investment in low-carbon transport.”
Narendra Modi attended the statue’s opening ceremony amid great fanfare. He was chief minister of Gujarat when the vast statue was commissioned.
