Sivaji statue moved from Marina to Adyar at midnight

The move has upset the fans of the late matinee star. R Baskar Sivaji, a member of the Sivaji fan club, said, “The government’s decision of removing the statue is unacceptable. The actor acted only in front of the camera and never behind it.”

Security was beefed up at the beach on Wednesday night to prevent any untoward incident with the police personnel putting up barricades around the statue. “Around 30 police from Armed Reserve and 15 special police personnel headed by senior police officers were monitoring the situation,” said an officer. Manohar, Superintending Engineer, PWD (Building Maintenance and

Construction Circle), who supervised the removal, told DT Next, “We were very cautious not to damage the statue while removing it. Around 50 workers from PWD, Greater Chennai Corporation and State Highways were involved in the shifting, which took almost threeanda-half hours.” Later, workers from GCC took up the cleaning work around the statue. Officials said that a crane was used to load the statue into a truck, which reached Mani Mandapam in

Adyar at 5.30 am, where the statue was re-installed. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is expected to unveil the statue soon. It may be noted that the Madras High Court in January 2014 had ordered the State government to apply corrective measures for removal of the statue from the beach. The Court also observed that the structure in the middle of the road had been causing immense inconvenience for traffic and motorists passing through Radhakrishnan Salai.

Will try to erect new statue: Prabhu “Since Sivaji Ganesan was a staunch loyalist of former CM K Kamaraj, we will make efforts to establish a new structure near the Kamaraj statue on the beach. We will also make a representation to the state on Friday,” Prabhu said. Later, actor Kamal Haasan tweeted: “Sivaji stands tall in the hearts of audience and artistes. Let us make another statue and preserve it forever.”