India’s corridors of power are getting a makeover — part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to cement his legacy as he looks to a third term in office in national elections next year.
Modi, who is spearheading a sweeping revamp of the colonial-era center of the Indian capital, inaugurated a new parliament house Sunday — a four-story modern structure built at a cost of 9.7 billion rupees ($117 million). The new building is expected to replace the century-old one where independent India’s constitution was adopted.
It’s part of the Central Vista project — a redesign of a historic stretch of monuments and government buildings between New Delhi’s famous India Gate and the sprawling red sandstone presidential palace — designed by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in the early 20th century. The project kicked off soon after Modi returned to power with an even bigger mandate in 2019 and is set to cost 200 billion rupees.