Does ‘spade work’ at Assi Ghat, nominates Akhilesh among nine key persons to carry forward drive in State
After brooming in New Delhi, it was the time for some ‘spade work’ for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi. On Saturday, as he launched the Swachchh Bharat campaign in his lok Sabha constituency, the PM led from the front by removing silt deposited at the Assi Ghat on the banks of River Ganga using a spade.
The PM, who broke into sweat while cleaning the Ghat for about 15 minutes, started with a Ganga Puja before picking up the spade. He later shared his plans of spreading cleanliness drive across Uttar Pradesh and nominated nine persons, including UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, to carry forward the drive in the State. The other nominated persons were, Chancellor of Chitrakoot Handicraft University Swami Rambhadracharya, Bhojpuri film star-turned — BJP MP Manoj Tiwari, writer Manu Sharma, cricketers Mohd Kaif and Suresh Raina, Sanskrit scholar Prof Devi Prasad Dwivedi, comedian Raju Srivastava and Sufi singer Kailash Kher.
“After launching the Clean India Mission on October 2 in New Delhi, I had nominated nine persons. In Kashi I am nominating nine personalities from UP so that the campaign can be carried forward,” PM said. He adding that the social organisations associated with the work of cleaning ghats in Varanasi too have promised that Assi Ghat would be made clean within a month.
The PM expressed desire to transform the ghats of Varanasi into a major tourist attraction through cleanliness drive and state-of-the art illumination technology, something the PM had done at the Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad during his tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Unlike majority of 85-odd ghats in seven-kilometre long semi-circled city, Assi Ghat is spacious where huge mud gets accumulated during the rainy season. For more than a week, hectic efforts have been made by an educational group, Sunbeam, which has adopted the Assi Ghat for cleanliness. In fact, various banks and NGOs too have adopted different ghats in Varanasi for cleaning up.
It is learnt that during discussions with city’s intelligentsia over dinner on Friday night, PM assured that the city will be given a facelift while keeping its sanctity and tradition intact.
“Kashi would be transformed into a modern city while retaining its traditional flavour, as the world has seen in london and something we had attempted with success in quake-hit Bhuj when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat,” PM said.
He suggested a number of plans for the city’s modernisation which included having battery-operated vehicles to reduce pollution and congestion, door-to-door garbage collection and a Palace on Wheels train between Delhi to Varanasi via Ayodhya and Prayag (Allahabad). Besides, he wanted the Banaras Hindu University campus will be developed into a Wi-Fi zone and every school of Varanasi will have separate toilets for boys and girls along with clean drinking water.
This was Modi’s first visit to Varanasi after taking over as PM in May. Before winding up his two-day visit during which he adopted Jayapur village to be developed as a model village under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna, PM did not forget to thank and motivate the BJP cadre in getting him a majority for a stable Government. Modi hoped that the party would perform well, just like it did in Haryana and Maharashtra, in upcoming Assembly elections in Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir.
“Things like lowering of diesel and petrol prices and Government officials reporting for duty on time could have happened earlier. But it took a strong Government to make these things a reality,” Modi said while adding coalition politics due to fractured verdicts had lowered the image of country and that India has now started getting its due on the international stage ever since the BJP had come to power with a complete majority. Interestingly, while addressing party workers PM appealed them to carry back water bottles, waste papers etc along with them before leaving the place.