Amit Shah flags off padayatra, calls for end to use of single-use plastic

NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said a people’s movement should take shape to prevent the use of singleuse plastic, while flagging off the Gandhi Sankalp Yatra in the Capital on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

Shah said that everyone should take an oath to end the use of single-use plastic, which takes hundreds of years to decompose. He urged BJP workers to push for ending the use of plastic.

Top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including party working president JP Nadda and Union minister Prakash Javadekar then undertook a ‘padayatra’ (march on foot), Gandhi’s favoured way to reach out to the masses, and gave a call to people to follow the ideals of the Father of the Nation.

Shah further said BJP workers would undertake a padayatra in their respective constituencies over the following fortnight, to spread the message of Gandhi’s teachings. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed for people to give up single-use plastics items. At the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, Modi spoke up against single-use plastic.

President Ramnath Kovind led the nation in paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Congress President Sonia Gandhi were among the political leaders who paid tributes to the Father of the Nation at the Central Hall of Parliament on Wednesday.