Why is the artist, Christo, not in Uttar Pradesh today? He is famous for having wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin, a whole bridge in Paris and an entire stretch of the Australian coast in shimmering, coloured fabric. So, imagine the splendid turn his career would take if he were commissioned — for millions of rupees and by none other than the Election Commission of India — to perform the solemn task of wrapping up colossal statues of elephants and chief ministers in pink polythene, making Jeff Koons turn green with envy. What an opportunity missed by the Indian government to set spectacular new standards in public art, and that too in the largest, most populated and notoriously backward state of the world’s largest democracy. The world expects to be entertained every time Indians come out to vote, and the EC is usually looked upon as a bit of a killjoy in these matters. So, this was its chance to reverse that image. But, the EC wants all statues of UP’s chief minister, Mayavati, and of her party symbol, the elephants of stone and bronze, covered by today. These artefacts — over which many hundreds of crores have been spent ever since Ms Mayavati became chief minister — are all over the state, and were built to furnish the history of the Dalits with icons of empowerment. Now the EC wants them covered up and removed from the public gaze, so that they do not unduly influence the electorate when it makes its electoral choices during the assembly elections in March.

It is scandalous enough that such immense amounts of public money have been spent already in building these memorials and statues, without the EC adding to such excess by wasting more taxpayer’s money, and its own time, in having them elaborately covered up. “It is an elephantine problem to drape these statues,” says a government official supervising the statue-covering operations in Lucknow. If the EC is serious about the Indian democracy, it must protect its citizens from such loose punning.