PM blames 'nervous' Congress for refusing his help for 2013 Uttarakhand flash floods

Blaming a 'nervous' Congress for blocking his efforts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday recalled that the UPA II Government, then in power in Uttarakhand, had refused his offer as Gujarat Chief Minister to rebuild the hill shrine of Kedarnath after the devastating 2013 flash floods in the hill state. 'Baba perhaps willed it differently... He sent me out to serve 125 crore people of the country as their service is the true service of God,' the Prime Minister said after he laid the foundation stones for five reconstruction projects. Recounting the sequence of events, the PM, who offered prayers at the famous Lord Shiv temple before launching the projects, said he had rushed to Kedarnath after the floods four years ago and offered to reconstruct the areas surrounding the shrine.

The then Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna of the Congress, now in the BJP, agreed 'in principle'. More than 5,000 people were killed in Uttarakhand in the floods and several towns and villages were destroyed by a series of landslides triggered by the flash floods. 'When the 2013 floods happened, I was Chief Minister of Gujarat and did not wish to encroach into any other state. But I could not stop myself and I came here. I had requested then that let the government of Gujarat handle the reconstruction work here. The then Uttarakhand CM and officials agreed and I announced the same to media. But then all hell broke loose in Delhi where people became nervous thinking how Modi reached Kedarnath. Pressure was brought on CM who then announced no help from Gujararat was needed," he said. Addressing a rally here, he said 'In my excitement I shared the development with the media and within an hour TV channels flashed it, causing a storm in New Delhi.

They (the Congress-led UPA government then at the Centre) viewed the development with a kind of alarm as they thought the Gujarat chief minister will now reach Kedarnath and mounted pressure on the then state government not to agree to my request," Mr Modi said on his decision when he was forced to withdraw his offer. 'I went back disappointed. But perhaps Baba (Lord Shiva) had decided that the responsibility of doing reconstruction work at Kedarnath should be assigned to no one else but to Baba's son. And this Baba's son is now doing it.

There is now a BJP government in Uttarakhand," added Mr Modi, who is on his second visit to Kedarnath in the past six months after BJP came to power in the state. As he laid the foundation stones for five reconstruction projects, which he described as ambitious and expensive, he assured there would be no dearth of funds for their completion. The projects include improved facilities for devotees, construction of retaining walls and ghats at the Mandakini and Saraswati rivers, an approach road to the shrine and reconstructing Adi Guru Shankaracharya's tomb which was destroyed in 2013.