Senior Uttar Pradesh minister Mohammed Azam Khan has landed in yet another controversy: he has said that Shah Jahan’s spending money on building the Taj Mahal was “unjustified” and if there was a move to demolish it he would willingly have led a mob to pull the monument down.
The minister made these remarks at a Muzaffarnagar function on Sunday. Two days ago, in Meerut, he asked girls not to emulate Mayawati, evoking strong protests from the BSP.
The minister said the riots that followed the Babri Masjid demolition had upset him deeply, but if someone wanted the Taj Mahal pulled down he would have gladly led a movement as he felt Emperor Shah Jahan had “no right to squander public funds” to honour the memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz.
“If people had decided to demolish the Taj Mahal instead of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, I would have willingly led them,” he said, and went on to add that BSP supremo Mayawati had similarly wasted a lot of public funds to build memorials and statues to honour her party’s top leaders and icons.