Ganga Yatra: Uma dares Mamata govt to arrest her

Addressing a crowded press meet flanked by state BJP President Rahul Sinha, Bharati alleged that Mamata-led administration is clamping restrictions on her Gangasagar to Gangotri Yatra on the pretext of law and order. 

State BJP president, Sinha said, the Yatra will start from Gangasagar at 10 am on September 21 to reach Ramkrishnapur Ghat at Howrah in the evening where Uma Bharati will perform ‘Ganga Aarti’ followed by a public meeting at Burrabazar. The Yatra will rest at Nabadwip on 22, at Murshidabad on 23 and at Maldah on 24 before entering Jharkhand.

At a time, Uma Bharati was all praise for Mamata Banerjee when both were ministers in the Vajpayee Cabinet. But on July 11 this year, she announced her Ganga Yatra programme at Kolkata adding a negative remark on Mamata. On that day she said that Mamata Banerjee has a ‘knack of ruining her allies’. 

“She (Banerjee) ensures the destruction of whichever party supports her or becomes an ally. She has destroyed the BJP in Bengal... I wish and pray that she does the same to her latest ally, the Congress,” Uma stated in July.

“I have been told by my party-workers that I can not hold any meeting, aarti and sabha in Bengal. The state administration has allowed me to hold 'Ganga Arti'. But they have denied permission for any rally and procession. This is unfair. It is totally an apolitical event but if the state government wants to create a problem and make it a political issue then I am ready for it,” a livid Bharati said. 

Challenging her former friend and the Chief Minister, she announced, “If the government wants to put me in jail, then they can do it. Nobody can stop me from holding the 'Ganga Samagra Yatra' on Friday.”

Dodging questions on political uncertainty after TMC’s pull-out threat, Bharati said, “My 750-km long Yatra is totally apolitical and to keep the river Ganga clean and pollution free. But in other sense, one may consider it as a reply to political uncertainty also.” As planned by BJP leaders the Yatra is supposed to cross four more states— Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. 

“Except West Bengal, no other state government, through which the Ganga flows, has imposed restriction on my Yatra,” she added.