PM prays at temple, inspects progress of construction projects

After engaging in bitter and ugly  spats with his political adversaries for more than six weeks during the Lok Sabha election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday landed at Kedarnath shrine for a spiritual retreat.

After walking on a red carpet to arrive at the temple where he offered prayer and inspected the progress of the construction activity, Modi withdrew himself in a special meditation cave located about 1.5 kms from the shrine. There he is seen sitting on a bed and propped up by a pillow while being lost in his meditative trance.

Modi who caught the attention of people by wearing a grey long suit, along with Himachali cap and saffron clothes, wrapped around his waist covered himself with a saffron shawl while entering the cave. Here he sat on a long meditation in complete isolation, but, the “photo op” was not missed. The picture of the PM performing meditation was aptly released and expectedly went viral.

The PM’s Kedarnath visit a day before polling has come under attack from the Opposition. The Congress flayed the Prime Minister for walking on a “red carpet” in God’s abode, while other Opposition parties also  mocked Modi for posing for picture at the shrine.

“The true devotees sacrifice their ego and arrogance before going to the abode of God, not after laying a red carpet. Modiji, hope you know that much,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted.

Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh tweeted Modi’s picture taken as he gestured to pay obeisance to the deity. “Hail the God of Camera,” he quipped, referring to the PM.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that Modi’s visit was a violation of the model code of conduct.

“Religion is a matter of personal faith and EC has reiterated that it cannot be used for garnering votes. But Modi violates the MCC brazenly with footage of his Kedarnath religious activity over TV channels during silent period before polling. And EC continues to sleep on the job,” he tweeted.

After spending the night at Kedarnath, the PM would visit Badrinath temple on Sunday morning. Modi arrived at the Dehradun airport, Jollygrant, on Saturday morning where he was accorded a warm welcome by Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya, Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and others.

At the airport, the PM inquired about the progress of reconstruction of Kedarnath and one of his pet projects the ‘All weather road’, connecting the Char Dhams from the CM Rawat and Chief Secretary ( CS) Utpal Kumar Singh.

From Dehradun airport, the PM boarded a Helicopter to visit the Kedarnath temple located at an altitude of 11664 above mean sea level (MSL). From the Helipad, the PM walked directly to the temple where he performed Rudrabhishekwith the help of chief priest Kedar Linga and Vedpathi Onkarnath Shukla. After performing a circumambulation of the sanctum sanctorum of the shrine, the PM greeted the pilgrims by waiving his hands.

After that PM started inspecting the progress of reconstruction and other activities in and around the temple. During the inspection of the construction activity, Modi was seen talking to the Uttarakhand CS, Utpal Kumar Singh and Manoj Semwal, the in charge of the work executing agency at Kedarnath. It is learnt that he sought detailed information about the progress of Astha Pathsbeing constructed along the Mandakini and Saraswati rivers and took note of the problems faced by engineers and workers due to adverse climatic conditions.

This was the  fourth time the PM vested the Kedarnath shrine during the last five years.  He visited Kedarnath in November last year at the time of closure of the temple for winters. In the year 2017 too he visited Kedarnath in May and October. His deep faith and devotion has resulted in acceleration of reconstruction activity in and around Kedarnath temple and has helped  in complete makeover of the area surrounding the temple. Regular visits of PM has further popularized Kedarnath shrine as the number of visitors here is showing an upward swing in last three years. He in a way has become an unofficial brand ambassador of Kedarnath. An example of his love for the Himalayas and Uttarakhand was reflected in one of his tweets on Saturday when on his way to the Kedarnath, PM posted some pictures of snow clad Himalayas on his tweeter account. In a tweet, he wrote, “Majestic Mountains! Clicked these pictures on the way to Kedarnath.’’