Tuesday, 07 November 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi offered Bhandara to the pilgrims on the second day of his Kedarnath visit on Monday. He himself offered food to the pilgrims near the temple. The Congress leader who is on a three-day personal and spiritual tour of Kedarnath also paid a visit to the Adi Guru Shankaracharya shrine located in the temple premises. He also interacted with the pilgrims and exchanged experiences in the holy site with them. The former Congress president has kept his Kedarnath visit a low profile affair and no senior leader of the Congress party and workers are with him during the visit. He is accompanied only by the former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal and former Congress MLA Manoj Rawat during the visit. Godiyal is a former chairman of the Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC).
Meanwhile, the PCC president Karan Mahara has objected to what he termed planned sloganeering during Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Kedarnath temple. He said that the slogan shouting by some people at the time Gandhi was offering prayers at the shrine was planned by the ruling BJP. On Sunday some pilgrims shouted ‘Modi- Modi’ and Jai Shree Ram slogans when Gandhi was going to the temple.
In a statement the PCC president said on Monday that Rahul Gandhi is on a personal religious tour of the State. He reminded that it was Rahul Gandhi who paid a visit to Kedarnath on foot after the natural disaster of 2013 to give the message that the Char Dham Yatra is safe for pilgrims. The PCC president said at that time the leaders of BJP were telling the entire world that the Char Dham Yatra is not safe.
