400-metre-long, 7-feet-high wall being built in Ahmedabad Another wall comes up for Trump
Ahmedabad, Feb. 14: U.S. President Donald Trump will be shielded from the sight of slums by a newly built wall when he visits the city of Ahmedabad during a visit to India later this month.
Construction workers build a wall along a slum area as part of a beautification drive along a route that U.S. President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be taking during Trump’s visit later this month.
A senior government official said the wall was being built for security reasons, not to conceal the slum district.
But the contractor building it said the government “did not want the slum to be seen” when Trump passes by on the ride in from Ahmedabad’s airport.
“I’ve been ordered to build a wall as soon as possible, over 150 masons are working round-theclock to finish the project,” the contractor said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The government official conceded that the wall was part of a “beautification and cleanliness” drive.
Whatever the reason, the 400-metre-long and seven-feet-high wall will prevent the U.S. leader from getting a glimpse of a slum district that houses an estimated 800 families.
Trump, who has made his pledge to build a wall along the United States’ border with Mexico a feature of his presidency, will visit India on Feb. 2425 to reaffirm strategic ties that have been buffeted by trade disputes.
He is expected to attend an event dubbed “Kem Chho Trump” (How are you, Trump”) at a stadium in Ahmedabad along the lines of the “Howdy Modi” extravagansa he hosted for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston last September.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump quoted Modi as saying “millions and millions of people” would attend the rally.
The event provides Trump, who was impeached in December, with the opportunity to woo the support of hundreds of thousands of IndianAmerican voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
But some slum dwellers whose homes will be cordoned off by the wall in Ahmedabad — the largest city in Modi’s home state of Gujarat — said the government was wasting tax-payer money to hide the poor.
"Poverty and slums are the reality of our life, but Modi's government wants to hide the poor," said Parvatbhai Mafabhai, a day worker who has lived there with his family for more than three decades.
Meanwhile, the Congress on Friday alleged that the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is constructing the wall to keep the slum colony, where people live in poverty, out of sight of the US President.
Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, “The BJP government and the AMC are trying their best to hide reality from Trump. Instead of alleviating poverty, the ruling dispensation is hiding the poor by building a wall. Such tactics of hiding poor people were also used when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the city in 2014. This is very unfortunate.”