It was a mixed bag for Mayawati on Thursday as the Lucknow High Court allowed her government to proceed with the construction of the Ambedkar Museum on the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan (IGP) land and then took a serious note of the reported felling of trees in and around Ambedkar Park — the venue of the BSP’s Mahapardafash rally on April 14.A court has asked for a report from the district authorities by May 7 as to who had directed the felling of the trees for the rally. Three fully-grown trees have been uprooted from near the Ambedkar statue at Hazratganj crossing, while nearly a dozen have been cut on Jail Road for widening the approach to Ambedkar Maidan. Soon after Mayawati became Chief Minister for the third time on May 3 last year, the Ambedkar Maidan had been developed at a place which used to be a part of the model jail for convicts. Here, prisoners serving life terms were allowed to live with their families and earn a living through farming. The area had a lush green cover, which has since withered, the convicts have been sent back to the barracks and their families home.Cornered on the tree issue, the Mayawati Government was quick to react to the favourable court order on the IGP project, as it began construction of the museum from today itself. The court has directed the state government to allot 25 acres of land, instead of the 10 acres provided earlier for the IGP project, elsewhere. The decision was announced after hearing three separate public interest litigations filed on the issue. For the Congress, its claim on the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan has been a prestige issue in Uttar Pradesh since Mayawati decided to take over the adjoining IGP land for building the Ambedkar Museum.For the first time in several years, the UP Congress had put its act together in September last and announced a statewide agitation to retrieve the land for the IGP project. Congress leaders from Motilal Vora to Arun Kumar Singh Munna had claimed that they would not let go of the land since the project was named after late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. They insisted that the issue was linked to the revival of Congress in UP. Several Congress workers had vowed to lay down their lives if the IGP project was shifted to a different site.On Friday, the UP Congress tried to pull a defiant face against the court order. ‘‘We did not file these PILs, therefore, it is not our defeat. Moreover, we are yet to receive a copy of the judgment. We cannot comment on it unless we study the court order in detail. Besides, we will decide on the next course of action when the UPCC meets here on April 15,’’ said state Congress leader Subodh Srivastava.
