Priyanka takes dip at Sangam, meets Shankaracharya
The main factors behind complete turnaround of Uttar Pradesh after chief minister Yogi Adityanath took charge of the state are rigorous monitoring, and expeditious implementation of the scheme by officials specially appointed for the task
PRAYAGRAJ: Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took a dip in the holy waters of the Sangam on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya, the most important bathing festival of the ongoing annual religious fair of Magh Mela-2021, in Prayagraj on Thursday.
The Congress leader took the dip like an ordinary devotee, without any protocol in view of the Mauni Amavasya bathing. Clad in a maroon salwar kurta, she also offered coconut and flowers at the Sangam, wearing Rudraksha beads on her wrist.
After offering prayers at the sacred confluence, she visited the Mankamneshwar temple and met Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati to pay her respects to the top seer. The Shankaracharya gifted her some books, a sari and a shawl as a blessing.
“I felt happy after coming to Prayagraj and meeting Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswatiji as a strong bond has been existing between my family and him for years now. I got a chance to visit Prayagraj today and took the opportunity to pay my respects to him,” Priyanka said after meeting the seer.
However, she refrained from commenting on any other issue and did not share any details regarding her prayers at the Sangam.
Earlier, the Congress leader arrived at Bamrauli airport from New Delhi in the morning and was received by senior Congress leaders and workers. She then proceeded by road to Anand Bhavan, the ancestral home of the Nehru-Gandhi family.
Here, she interacted with orphans residing at the Children’s Home that runs at Anand Bhavan. She also paid floral tributes at the spot in Anand Bhavan where the ashes of India’s first Prime Minister and her greatgrandfather Jawaharlal Nehru were kept before being immersed at the Sangam in 1964.
From Anand Bhavan, she directly went to Arail Ghat and
took a boat to reach Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati river. In between, she rowed her boat. Senior Congress leader Pramod Tiwari and Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’, besides other senior party leaders accompanied her on the visit.
She then returned to Anand Bhavan and, after a brief rest, headed to Bamrauli airport for catching a flight for New Delhi.
She was in Saharanpur on Wednesday to address a kisan mahapanchayat. She had also paid obeisance at the famous Shakambhari Devi Temple near Saharanpur on Wednesday.
The strength and power of our women is our pride. Women empowerment is most important and crucial for the development of the nation.
Narendra Modi Prime Minister
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has led the state from front in the PMAY. From being amongst the low performing state till 2017 in the implementation of urban segment of PM Awas Yojana, UP has emerged as the best performing state in the country and urban territories in the past over three and a half years and also registering a huge increase in sanction of houses. As per official estimates before March 2017 only 19,000 houses were sanctioned under the central governments’ scheme to provide houses to all in urban areas.
This number stands at over 17.60 lakh and the number of houses completed has increased from barely 36,000 in March 2017 to 6.50 lakh. In view of this outstanding performance, Uttar Pradesh has received the award of best performing state in the implementation of this scheme. In another achievement, Nagar Palika Parishad Mirzapur has been adjudged the best performing urban local body in construction of houses under the scheme. The Malihabad Nagar Panchayat in Lucknow bagged the first position in its category of local body while Harraiya Nagar panchayat in Sant Kabir Nagar too bagged the third rank among the top five selected by the Union Housing Ministry.
The main factor behind this complete turnaround of UP after chief minister Yogi Adityanath took charge of the state were rigorous monitoring, and appointing officers especially for expeditious implementation. The state government almost institutionalised weekly review of the progress and the chief minister visiting sites and holding stocktaking meetings with senior officials.
The state government also tied up with several lending institutions including
HUDCO to ensure there was no fund crunch. The UP government adopted different modules of the scheme for different categories of cities and towns for speedy implementation. For example, in B and C tier towns the focus was on beneficiary led house construction (BLC) where people have acquired land for building houses. The state also ranks high in the CLSS vertical (interest subsidy on home loan) of the PMAY scheme.