Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the country’s National War Memorial adjoining the iconic India Gate complex in the heart of the capital, nearly 60 years after it was mooted to honour the fallen soldiers after Independence.

On the occasion Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at the Congress saying : “From Bofors to AgustaWestland chopper deal, all the investigations are pointing to one family and it says a lot. Now these people are making all efforts to make sure that the Rafale aircraft doesn’t arrive in the country.”

PM Modi directly hit out at the Congress and said that it took seven decades for India to get a war memorial for its martyrs as the previous governments could not.

Spread over an area of approximately 40 acres, the memorial comprises four concentric circles, namely– the ‘Amar Chakra, the Veerta Chakra, the ‘Tyag Chakra’ and the ‘Rakshak Chakra’ with names of 25,942 soldiers inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets.

It also includes a central obelisk, an eternal flame and six bronze murals depicting famous battles fought by Indian Army, Air Force and Navy in a covered gallery (Veerta Chakra).

The PM dedicated the memorial, built at a cost of Rs 176 crore, by lighting the flame positioned at the bottom of the stone-made obelisk. Rose petals were showered by IAF helicopters and a fly-past in ‘Missing Man’ formation was also part of the event.

There was no national memorial to commemorate the sacrifice of fallen soldiers after independence.

The NWM pays tribute to soldiers who laid down their lives defending the nation during India-China war in 1962, Indo-Pak wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971, Indian Peace Keeping Force Operations in Srilanka and in the Kargil conflict of 1999.