VP Dhankar to inaugurate controvesial 'Prerna Sthal' on Sunday

New Delhi: Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar is all set to inaugurate the 'Prerna Sthal' in the Parliament complex on Sunday, according to PTI reports.

Prerna Sthal will host all the statues of freedom fighters and other leaders, which were placed inside the complex but in different locations. Many had criticised the move, including the opposition Congress party.

An official statement said all members of Parliament have been invited to the event, and the outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and other dignitaries will also be present.

While the Congress has criticised the decision to remove the statues from their existing place, the Lok Sabha secretariat has said their placements at different places made it difficult for visitors to see them properly.

"The 'Prerna Sthal' has been constructed so that the dignitaries and other visitors coming to Parliament House Complex could conveniently see and pay tributes at these statues in one place.

"An action plan has been made to make the life stories and messages of these great Indians available to the visitors through new technology," it said.

The Congress has claimed that the idea behind relocating the statues of Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar and Chhatrapati Shivaji, among others, is to ensure that they are not in a prominent place where MPs could conduct peaceful and democratic protests.

The Lok Sabha secretariat said it may be recalled that even before this, during the construction work of the new Parliament Building, the statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Motilal Nehru and Chaudhary Devi Lal were shifted to other places in the complex.

Lawns and gardens have been laid around the statues at 'Prerna Sthal' to allow visitors to pay their tributes to them easily and also take inspiration from their lives through the QR code, it added.