lucknow new delhi its an urban transformation that the rest of india has only heard about and barely seen the makeover of the city of nawabs into mayanagari the up chief ministers obsession with building massive structures in lucknow is leading to heritage structures such as the bara imambara and residency being overshadowed literally by monumental projects such as the ambedkar and kanshiram memorials these are some of mayawatis pet projects there are five of them and have devoured large green areas sports arenas and residential and office complexes the statistics speak for themselves 55 lakh metric tones of pink and red sandstone from rajasthan and mirzapur gigantic stupas 46 statues of mayawati kanshiram and numerous other dalit leaders 60 mammoth elephants made of chunar stone in the ambedkar memorial they cover 413 acres and are estimated to cost rs 3000 crore of public money many believe statues of herself at all project sites underline her desire to carve out a place for herself in the nations history whatever her electoral fortunesbut extravagant building works by heads of government are all too often associated with autocratic regimes and tyrants such as saddam hussein and north koreas kim il jong the kim family reportedly has no less than 30000 statues and monuments dedicated to its glory turkmenistans former president saparmurat niyazov notoriously used the countrys oil and gas wealth to install statues of himself around the country during his 20year rule history offers other examples such as hitler and stalin who visualized vast cities built in their honour its said that such men build great palaces and monuments to show they are strong to defy the world or to prove their worth to themselvesmany in lucknow say that mayawati seems to have given little thought to the way she is changing the legendary city of havelis might it be an edifice complex as one architecture writer dubbed the relationship between power wealth and architecture