Mumbai:

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister on Friday lambasted opposition for its “pettiness” over the collapse of the Shivaji statue at Sindhudurg after Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologised to the people of Maharashtra who were hurt by the collapse.

Speaking to the media on Friday, Fadnavis said, “The opposition is only seeing the politics in the incident, they cannot see beyond the politics. The Prime Minister has openly apologised to all the devotees of Shivaji. Doing politics on this is the pettiness of the opposition. We do not need the Congress’s certificate.”

Earlier PM Modi while addressing a gathering at Malvan in Maharashtra’s Palghar district apologised for the incident.

“Those who consider Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj as their deity and have been deeply hurt, I bow my head and apologise to them. Our values are different. For us, nothing is bigger than our deity,” PM Modi said.

A 35-foot-tall statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the state’s Sindhudurg district collapsed on August 26.

Notably, in December last year, PM Modi had inaugurated the 35-foot statue of Shivaji in coastal Maharashtra. Less than nine months later, the statue collapsed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)