In the midst of all others scams of the Mayawati, it is now the “elephantine” scam that is now raising its head.
The elephant scam came to light two days ago when the police arrested a Rajkiya Nirman Nigam contractor Aditya Agarwal on a complaint filed by one Madan Lal who claims that he was asked to carve marble elephant statues at the rate of `48 lakhs per statue.
Madan Lal, a sculptor from Agra , says in his complaint that while he was paid the agreed amount for the first two statues that he carved but for the third he was paid only `7.5 lakhs
Another complainant, Ashok Kumar, also from Agra, said that he is yet to be paid the full amount for statues that he supplied for Mayawati’s memorials including Bauddha Vihar Shanti Upvan.
“When I asked for my payment, I was threatened with dire consequences,” he told the police.
According to the two sculptors, Rajkiya Nirman Nigam contractors and engineers made huge amounts of money by sub-letting contracts for elephant statues and duped the sculptors of their money. “These contractors and engineers floated firms almost overnight and gave them these contracts. The firms obviously had no expertise in the business and the contracts were outsourced. The RNN contractor Aditya Agarwal called me in January 2011 and asked me to make elephant statues that were 196 inches in length, 170 inches tall and 72 inch in width and the official rate for this was `48 lakhs per elephant. The contractor, obviously, kept the money to himself and paid me pittance,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Aditya Agarwal told police that an order for 60 elephants had been placed for the Noida Park but when controversy erupted over the park, the former chief minister Mayawati hurriedly inaugurated the Noida Park with merely 20 elephant statues.
He said that he was forced to delay payments to the sculptors since his own payments had been held up.