Politics oVer pm Visit to KedarnatH
The recent visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand, is turning into an “election issue” in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The Congress has expressed surprise over the way PM addressed a “political rally” there. The Congress is also upset over Modi taking credit for undertaking redevelopment projects, which they say were put into operation by the UPA government after the devastating floods four years ago. After the floods, Uttarakhand faced the 2014 Lok Sabha and the 2017 Assembly elections. The BJP captured power from the Congress in the Assembly polls. It seems that there is a greater urge among parties to keep alive the issue of reconstruction around the Kedarnath shrine.
The ruling BJP in Uttarakhand wants to take all the credit for the reconstruction activity, while Congress says much work had already been done by the previous regime. During his Kedarnath visit, Modi said that as Gujarat Chief Minister, “I was not allowed to carry out the redevelopment work at the shrine by the UPA government.” The Manmohan Singh government at the Centre and the Harish Rawat government in Uttarakhand had said, “This is our job.”
Political pundits are of the view that the issue of reconstruction at Kedarnath perfectly fits in with the BJP’s Hindutva agenda at a time when Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are in an election mood. And the 2019 Lok Sabha polls are fast approaching.
During this Diwali, Ayodhya—where the Uttar Pradesh CM lit diyas on the Saryu riverbank—and Kedarnath shrine (because of Modi’s visit) were in news. Both Ayodhya and Kedarnath are important Hindu pilgrimage destinations and strengthen the image of the BJP in the eyes of the people. The BJP is claiming that Modi will revisit the Kedarnath shrine in 2018 during Dussehra to inaugurate the reconstruction projects. In the Assembly elections, the Congress was decimated. But the BJP could not win the Kedarnath seat. The Congress candidate, Manoj Rawat, a rank outsider, bagged the seat. “We should stop politicising Kedarnath,” Manoj Rawat told this writer over telephone. “I am the local MLA but the ruling BJP did not have the courtesy to invite me during the PM’s visit.”
After a lull, the ruling Left Front in Kerala finds itself in a political soup in more than one way. Its Janajagrata Yatra, to counter BJP’s just concluded Janaraksha Yatra, has run into trouble days after it took off, one from the north and one from the south, respectively led by state secretaries of CPM and CPI, two major constituents of the Front. Its all-powerful Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is openly backing one of his ministers, money-loaded businessman transport minister Thomas Chandy, owner of a swanky resort in Alappuzha backwaters, accused of flouting wetland rules. The district collector, who has submitted a report indicting Chandy for his misdeeds, is facing imminent punishment transfer for “misleading the government”. The government is moving high court against a CBI probe into the killings of seven BJP-RSS workers after the Left Front assumed power in May last year. K.P. Mahija, mother of the private engineering college student Jishnu Prannoy, who was found dead in his hostel room last January, has moved the Supreme Court seeking justice, which was promised to her but subsequently denied by the very same Left Front government. Mahija and her family, strong supporters of CPM, had gone on a hunger strike, rousing the conscience of an entire state. It was called