Fed up of the delay in installing a statue of Sambhaji in the eponymous garden run by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), a Pune youth went ahead and completed the job himself. He installed the statue in the Chhatrapati Sambhaji Garden and even took a video of the same, which went viral on social media. The Pune police later removed the statue.

In January 2017, the statue of well-known Marathi playwright Ram Ganesh Gadkari was removed from the garden by admirers of Sambhaji. This time, Ganesh Karle, a member of Swabhimani Sangathana, installed Sambhaji's statue there. A case of trespassing and creating tension in society under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code was registered against him.