If exact replica of original were to be placed, it would barely be visible: Hardeep Puri on emblem row

New Delhi, July 12 (IANS) If an exact replica of the original were to be placed on the new building, it would barely be visible beyond the peripheral rail, said Union Minister for Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on the ongoing emblem row on Tuesday.

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the cast of the national emblem atop the new Parliament building, opposition parties and activists on Tuesday accused the government of distorting the national emblem by replacing the graceful and confident Ashokan lions with those displaying an aggressive posture.

Puri put out a series of tweets clarifying the difference between the original emblem and the new one and said that the experts must know that the original placed in Sarnath is at ground level.

"If an exact replica of the original were to be placed on the new building, it would barely be visible beyond the peripheral rail. The 'experts' should also know that the original placed in Sarnath is at ground level while the new emblem is at a height of 33 mtrs from ground", he said in the tweet.

He said that beauty is famously regarded as being in the eyes of the beholder. So is the case with calm and anger.

"The original Sarnath Emblem is 1.6 mtr high whereas the emblem on the top of the New Parliament Building is huge at 6.5 mtrs height", said Puri in another tweet.

"One needs to appreciate the impact of angle, height & scale when comparing the two structures. If one looks at the Sarnath emblem from below it would look as calm or angry as the one being discussed", he added in a subsequent tweet.

"If the Sarnath emblem was to be scaled up or the emblem on the new Parliament building is reduced to that size there would not be any difference", he concluded in the tweet.