New Delhi: Amidst the escalating charges of 'changes' made to the national emblem, which was recently installed at the top of the new parliament building and was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the key sculptor Sunil Deore has come to defend the replica he designed. The opposition parties are condemning the central government, claiming that the 9.5-tonne cast holds the likeliness of King Ashoka's lion emblem but displays an aggressive manner, unlike the actual structure. While countering the allegations in a recent interview with a leading new channel, Deore claimed that there has been no influence by the government or the administration in the making of the structure. "The newly unveiled emblem is a replica of the original structure of it installed at Sarnath. Before we began with our project, the original sculpture was thoroughly examined and analysed", he said. "It was a difficult job to maintain the exact proportions of the cast as the original sculpture is 3 to 3.5 feet high, while the replica is comparatively massive with a height of 21.3 feet", he added. Defending the charges of 'changes' being made to the expression of the lions in the emblem, Deore said the slight difference in the expressions occurred from different angles. Watch: #Exclusive | #NationalEmblem controversy escalates! Sculptor Sunil Deore speaks to TIMES NOW; counters 'National Emblem changed' charge 'No changes were made to the Emblem', says Sunil Deore.@PriyaBahal22 pic.twitter.com/kxLTnNVoDA — TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) July 12, 2022 Talking about the project, he further said, "I did not receive the contract directly from the government. I was given the contract by Tata Project Limited". Meanwhile, union minister Hardeep Singh Puri also took a dig at opposition in a Twitter thread which read, "One needs to appreciate the impact of angle, height & scale when comparing the two structures. If one looks at the Sarnath emblem from below it would look as calm or angry as the one being discussed". "If the Sarnath emblem was to be scaled up or the emblem on the new Parliament building is reduced to that size there would not be any difference", he added. Sense of proportion & perspective. Beauty is famously regarded as lying in the eyes of the beholder. So is the case with calm & anger. The original #Sarnath #Emblem is 1.6 mtr high whereas the emblem on the top of the #NewParliamentBuilding is huge at 6.5 mtrs height. pic.twitter.com/JsAEUSrjtR — Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) July 12, 2022
