Northeast's first ever Vajpayee Statue to be installed on December 25

Silchar: Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal would unveil a 13-feet bronze statue of former Prime Minister late Atal Bhari Vajpayee. The statue built at a cost of Rs 15 lakhs has been built at Zero Point in Silchar.

This is the first statue of Vajpayee to come up anywhere in Northeast.

The statue has been designed by artist Chandra Shekhar Das. He completed the project within just 4 months in his studio in Kolkata.  Silchar MP Dr. Rajdeep Roy was the one who came up with the project in 2003-2004. Along with his district team, Roy commissioned the statue in August this year. He said, "Many admirers of the late PM expressed their willingness to contribute in the making of the bronze statue. Keeping in mind the sentiments associated with the great statesman, we had to open an account for the contribution which was only voluntary donation."

A total of 1 lakh rupees went into the statue's construction solely from MP Roy's part. Besides it was also revealed that over 11,000 BJP Karyakartas came forward to give their bit for the cause of putting up the statue of the noble man. Regarding the attachment the people of Barak valley share with the Prime Minister, he also said, "People of Barak are very emotional about the former PM. He visited here multiple times. Vajpayee also stayed in my house in 1984 for three days and also came for my father's election campaign in 2001."

In the year 1994, the Golden Quadrilateral Project for East-West corridor was conceived by Vajpayee with a view to connecting the North of the country to the South and the East to the West. The idea behind this was to ease passenger traffic as well as freight movement. As such Rangpur in Silchar, Assam became the Zero point for the eastern side.

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