Modi’s constituency Varanasi soon to get a facelift

Mangalore Today News Network

Lucknow, September 3, 2014: Days after promising to turn Varanasi into Kyoto, it has come to the fore that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to constitute a committee to develop Varanasi, his Parliamentary constituency, as a ’smart’ city.

The decision to develop Varanasi was not taken during his ongoing Japan trip but Modi had, in fact, promised during his election campaign to make Varanasi a modern city, while at the same time keep its ancient heritage of a religious city intact. And it seems like Modi started work on this promise even before he left for Japan.

Sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed Modi held a series of meetings about 10 days ago with former governor of Jammu and Kashmir Jagmohan, who he is planning to make the head of the committee.

We have come to know that Varanasi would be divided into four sectors and each sector would be named after the four Vedas-Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda.

The city will be beautified on the lines of a planned metro city," a BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity. Jagmohan is a former civil servant, and previously a loyalist of the Gandhi-Nehru family, who later switched his allegiance to the BJP. As vicechairman of the Delhi Development Authority in 1970s, he demolished a number of slums for the beautification of the Capital.

He was the lieutenant governor of Delhi at the time of the 1982 Asian Games. He also formed a board for the management of Vaishno Devi as the then governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and provided several facilities to pilgrims of the Hindu shrine.

As the urban development minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Jagmohan had worked for the beautification of ghats.

Last month, BJP president Amit Shah inaugurated Modi’s office in Varanasi and deployed RSS leaders to solve the various problems faced by the locals. Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha was assigned to coordinate with Modi’s office in the City of Ghats.

Reacting to the news of the Kyoto-Varanasi pact, Uttar Pradesh party spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said, "We all know that India and Japan have signed a pact to develop Varanasi on the lines of Kyoto. It will be developed as a confluence of heritage and modernity. Modi is not just the prime minister but he is also an MP who is concerned about his constituency."

This is not all. Last month, Google was roped in by Modi to prepare a project report on the development of the ancient city. His government also announced a Rs.6,300-crore ’Namami Ganga’ plan and allocated another Rs.100 crore for the development of ghats across the country-a big share of which is expected to be grabbed by Varanasi.


Courtesy:Indiatoday