Prime Minister Modi’s bhoomipujan of a Shivaji memorial in Mumbai has once again raised the same old question of how judiciously our leaders spend the taxpayers’ money.  Shivaji’s place in national history and Maratha society is secure and adequately recognised. If Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis is splurging Rs 3,600 crore on a memorial and the Prime Minister happily becomes a party to it instead of advising him to be more careful in handling people’s money, it is not to enhance the stature of the country’s famous warrior but to buy public goodwill for their own political benefit. This has happened in a state that has earned nationwide notoriety for leading in farmer suicides.Modi himself set an unhealthy example of extracting political gain from dead heroes when he decided to build a Sardar Patel statue at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. The statue will be complete close to the next Lok Sabha elections. Earlier, as UP Chief Minister, Mayawati built 130 huge statues of elephant, her party’s symbol, and installed them in Noida and Lucknow. Closer home, Punjab Chief Minister Badal has dug up history for forgotten Sikh heroes for building memorials or celebrating their anniversaries. To avoid criticism of being communal in government spending, he has played memorial politics to appease non-Sikh communities too. One of the latest additions to his list of freebies is free pilgrimage at the state expense. Not to be left behind, Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar reportedly spent Rs 100 crore on a Gita festival in Kurukshetra earlier this month. Communities know how to respect and remember their heroes. Political leaders display crass insensitivity in using public money. In power, they are required to take decisions and some can go wrong, and can be forgiven if taken in good faith. But a deliberate, politically motivated diversion involving such huge amounts in a country so starved of resources is nothing but a criminal waste.  Political parties need to mention in their manifestos that they would divert the state’s limited resources from health, education and infrastructure to religious causes and personal projection and thereafter seek the public mandate.