Bus mishap may hit Char Dham tourism: Upadhyay

Dehradun, April 21

State Congress president Kishore Upadhyay today said the Chaupal bus mishap would  have a negative impact on the Char Dham yatra in Uttarakhand beginning in the state shortly.

Upadhyay, while addressing a press conference at the state Congress headquarters in Dehradun, asserted that already a large number of pilgrims have cancelled their visits to Uttarakhand for the forthcoming Char Dham yatra in the aftermath of tragic Chaupal bus mishap.

He said it was strange that on the one hand the BJP government was promoting all weather roads for Uttarakhand in a big way, while on other hand it has no solutions for such  mishaps on hill roads. Hill routes must be safe and the state government needed to take steps urgently rather than adopting an insensitive attitude towards this serious matter, he said.

“Insensitive attitude of Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat can be gauged from the fact that on the very day of mishap, the Chief Minister was busy in celebrations in the Jaunsar Bavar area but had no time to visit the accident site,” Upadhyay pointed out.

Referring to campaign started by Uttarakhand ministers to remove red beacons from their vehicles, Upadhyay said it was first the Congress government in Punjab that started this campaign at the initiative of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.  Upadhyay also took opportunity to disclose that the next meeting of the state Congress committee would take place on May 9 at Badrinath in Chamoli district. The state Congress president also condemned the Modi government policies in Jammu and Kashmir. He said it was a matter of concern that situation in Kashmir valley has come to a new low and even students in school dresses had become stone-pelters.

State Congress vice-president Joth Singh Bisht was also present at the news conference. —TNS