Dehradun, September 6, 2013: An NGO in Uttarakhand has urged the senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj to stop what it called “spreading the superstition” that the floods that devastated Kedarnath and other places in the State in June were due to the displacement of the Dhari Devi temple along the Alaknanda near Srinagar.

Expressing shock at Ms. Swaraj’s demand in the Lok Sabha that the temple of Dhari Devi, considered protector of the Char Dham pilgrimage, be shifted back to its original location, chairperson of Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra Avdhash Kaushal said the BJP should know that its own government led by B.C. Khanduri had ordered its displacement after local villagers and the temple committee had agreed to it to facilitate the Srinagar power project upstream.

Ms. Swaraj and her colleagues were trying to play up the issue for electoral gains and this was anti-development and anti-Uttarakhand, Mr. Kaushal alleged.

Source: The Hindu, September 6, 2013