MODI LIKELY TO SPEND DIWALI WITH ITBP MEN

NEWDELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to celebrate Diwali with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel deployed along the Indo-China border in Uttarakhand and might also visit the Mana post.

Last year too the Prime Minister had spent the festival of lights with troops stationed at Sumdo in Himachal Pradesh. Modi is also scheduled to visit the Kedarnath shrine a day after Diwali, sources said.

Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) remained tight-lipped about Modi’s schedule for Diwali and the ITBP too refused to comment but sources said the force was making preparations to receive the Prime Minister in the Kedarnath sector on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister’s visit to the Indo-China border comes a month after the two sides brought an end to the 73-day Doklam standoff, which was triggered by Beijing undertaking road construction at the trijunction of India, China and Bhutan.

In 2014, the Prime Minister had gone to Srinagar on Diwali after floods ravaged the Jammu and Kashmir capital and took a detour to Siachen.

A year later, he visited a war memorial near Amritsar on Indo-Pak border.

Sources said defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman will celebrate Diwali with troops in Andaman and Nicobar Island and Army chief General Bipin Rawat will mark the day in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri.