UMA ANNOUNCES PADYATRA PLAN
Two days after she was shifted from the ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation and given the relatively low profile drinking water and sanitation portfolio, Union minister Uma Bharti announced a plan to undertake a ‘padyatra’ along the banks of Ganga from October.
“I will start the yatra from Gangasagar in West Bengal,” Bharti told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
She, however, clarified that it is not an act of defiance. “It would have been defiance if I had announced the decision to undertake the yatra today… I had announced my plan last year itself…,” she said.
“I have not failed in the Ganga program. Yesterday (Monday) after Gadkari ji took charge he said that he was associated with me in this project for the last three years. So if we failed, how did he get the portfolio? This means we did not fail…”
Bharti said that she has been scolded twice by PM Narendra Modi in the last three years. “Lekin woh ek hi baat par padi hain ki main bahut moti ho gayi hoon aur mujhe apna weight kam karna hain. (But it was only for one thing, that I had gained weight and I had to lose it.)”
Bharti’s new ministry pilots the government’s flagship Swachh Bharat programme in rural areas. She said 4,000 villages on the banks of Ganga that has been made Open Defecation Free but the river is yet to be cleaned. “Earlier Gadkari was helping me in cleaning Ganga, now I will help him,” she said.