Congress to resume Kedarnath Pratishtha Raksha Yatra

Dehradun: The Congress on Tuesday said it will resume its Kedarnath Pratishtha Raksha Yatra as soon as normal traffic through the trek route to the Himalayan temple begins again, saying that the foot march has not yet achieved its goals.

The development comes a day after Kedarnath Dham Delhi Trust said it had dropped the plan to build a replica of the Himalayan temple at Burari in the national capital after realising that it would hurt religious sentiments.

The Uttarakhand Congress on August 2 postponed its Raksha Yatra in view of the havoc in Kedarnath valley after heavy rain. The yatra that began on July 24 from Har Ki Pauri in Haridwar to protest against the proposed construction of a replica of Kedarnath in Delhi was to conclude as per its original schedule on August 3 at the Himalayan temple.

"Opposing construction of a replica of the temple in Delhi was not our only goal. The Shila (rock) taken from Kedarnath to Burari for the building of the temple should be brought back, donations collected by the Trust in the name of the project through a QR code should be recovered and the people behind it should be booked," Uttarakhand Congress vice president Suryakant Dhasmana said at a press conference here.

Instead of claiming credit for the said Trust dropping its plan, the state government should apologise to the people of the state for allowing all this to happen, he said.

"The Congress will resume the yatra from the place where it was given up due to extensive damage to the route on the night of July 31 following torrential rain," he said.

"We had to relinquish the yatra as we did not want to become a hindrance for the rescue operations launched along the route after the disaster," he added.

The state government and the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee are also answerable to people on the controversy surrounding the gold plating of the internal walls of Kedarnath, Dhasmana said.

"They must explain where 228 kilos of gold vanished. How did all the gold turn into brass?" he asked.