Pritish Nandy refuses to believe he mistook another Sardar Patel statue for Statue of Unity
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Pritish Nandy refuses to believe he mistook another Sardar Patel statue for Statue of Unity

Nandy tweeted an image of a bronze sculpture of Sardar Patel, made by Jashuben Shilpi, to claim Statue of Unity has no resemblance to Patel’s actual face.

Priyamvada Grover    
A screenshot of the viral post

A screenshot of the viral post

Nandy tweeted image of a bronze sculpture of Sardar Patel, made by Jashuben Shilpi, to claim Statue of Unity bore no resemblance to Patel’s face.

New Delhi: Journalist and former Rajya Sabha member Pritish Nandy shared a photo of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on social media, claiming that the recently unveiled ‘Statue of Unity’ had no resemblance to his face.

However, the picture of the statue Nandy had posted wasn’t that of the 182-metre tall structure unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat on 31 October. What he shared was an image of a 10-year-old bronze sculpture of Sardar Patel, made by sculptor Jashuben Shilpi.

The tweet Nandy posted Sunday morning has received almost a thousand retweets and more than 2,500 likes.

“The statue of Sardar Patel is so tall that you can hardly see his face. If you did you will notice there is no resemblance to the real man,” the tweet read.

In Nandy’s tweet, one can see a caption “real pic” written on the image of Sardar Patel, and the image of Shilpi’s statue has “sanghified pic” written on it.

However, many Twitter users, including senior journalist Sachin Kalbag, pointed out Nandy’s mistake and criticised him for making false claims.

Many users replied with the image of Shilpi working on her statue that Nandy mistakenly claimed as the Statue of Unity.

Even Boom FactCheck, a verified fact-checking Twitter handle, pointed out the mistake, but Nandy refused to acknowledge the faux pas.

“This is the same statue. Look at the face. Outlook too has reproduced it. It is exactly the same,” he tweeted.

Earlier this year, the image of the bronze statue made by Shilpi was circulated on social media with conspiracy theories floating that it was a “made-in China” sculpture. However, the Getty caption along the same image specifies that it was taken during Shilpi’s workshop near Gandhinagar in Gujarat on 31 October, 2008.

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Shilpi, known as the ‘Bronze Woman of India’, passed away in 2013, at the age of 64. She had made more than 225 large statues during her lifetime.

Many Twitter users responded to Nandy’s tweets with images of the 15-ft replica of Statue of Unity, claiming there is resemblance between Patel’s original face and that of the statue.