Narendra Modi to lead 'unity' run for Sardar's Patel's statue

New Delhi, Dec 13: BJP's PM candidate

, party chief

and L K Advani, chief ministers and its other stalwarts will lead the 'run for unity' in different cities on Sunday to mobilise support for building

's biggest statue in Gujarat.

BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said BJP leaders and workers will be fully involved in the two-kilometre run, which has been planned at over 565 places.

Advani will participate in the run in Ahmedabad, Modi in Vadodra, Singh and Arun Jaitley in Delhi and Sushma Swaraj in Bhopal. The run will kickstart the party's campaign to collect iron and soil from around 2.38 lakh panchayats and it would be used in building what Modi has claimed will be the world's tallest statue at 182 meters.

Advani will participate in the run in Ahmedabad and Modi in Vadodra.

Various cultural and regional bodies would take part in the run, Naqvi said. He said the state government has completed all the formalities which are required for building the statue, when asked if environmental clearances from the Centre have been accorded for the project. He said the project was an effort to give Patel due honour as he was the first home minister and is credited with uniting 565 independent states with India.

Congress governments, he alleged, had done everything to erase his contributions from the history books and BJP wanted to bring Patel back into public limelight as he was the true nation-builder. BJP and especially Modi have been accused by Congress of trying to appropriate Patel's legacy as the party lacked any truly great leader linked with the freedom movement.

Modi had even regretted that Jawaharlal Nehru and not Patel had become the country's first prime minister, claiming that India's destiny would have been different had Patel been the prime minister.

PTI