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BJP Amrit Kalash Yatra reaches Kargil martyr’s place
UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary led the Amrit Kalash Yatra, through which the party is seeking to pay homage to martyrs and freedom fighters.
The Amrit Kalash Yatra being taken out by the BJP as part of its Meri Maati Mera Desh campaign reached the house of Kargil martyr Captain Manoj Pandey’s Gomtinagar residence on Tuesday.
UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary led the Amrit Kalash Yatra, through which the party is seeking to pay homage to martyrs and freedom fighters. It is also using the occassion for mass contact ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha poll.
“It is an honour beyond words to visit families of such heroes who made the supreme sacrifice for the motherland,” UP BJP chief said. “Instilling a sense of national pride and inspiring future generations to protect country’s cherished heritage is central to the campaign,” he added.
“The BJP cadres are collecting soil or rice from each house. The campaign timed with 75 years of country’s independence will see cadres create a Amrit Vatika at each ward or village level,” the BJP chief said.
Captain Manoj Pandey, an army officer from Lucknow, was posthumously awarded the country’s highest military honour, the Param Vir Chakra, for his courage and leadership during the 1999 Kargil war. Ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is identifying such heroes everywhere, including in the countryside where the campaign is intended to draw a connection with the rural populace by envisioning a unified celebration of country’s soil and valour.
The BJP delegation, led by Chaudhary and comprising party MLC Mukesh Sharma, state general secretary Sanjay Rai and other leaders, met the late army officer’s father Gopi Chand Pandey, brother Manmohan Pandey and his relative Anuradha Pandey.
After collecting soil and rice in an urn, the BJP delegation also visited other houses in the Eldeco Colony, Gomtinagar locality, collecting soil and rice from them. The eventual plan, comprising many activities and ceremonies, is that the soil collected from across the villages would go into making Amrit Vatikas in memory of such heroes at each village, the state capital as well as the national capital.
Speed up the campaign: UP BJP leader
The BJP campaign that is being run across panchayat/village, block and urban local bodies of the state, should gather pace, state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh is believed to have directed the party cadres.
The BJP cadres have so far covered nearly 22000 booths across nearly 8000 villages across the state. In all the UP BJP must undertake Amrit Kalash campaigns across over 1.6 lakh booths, party leaders said. Two ‘Amrit Kalash’ must be collected from each village, one would be kept in Lucknow and the other sent to Delhi for Amrit Vatika, party leaders said.
Shilaphalakam or memorial plaques would be erected in the name of freedom fighters, defence personnel or those from the Central Armed Police Forces and state police personnel who laid down their lives in the line of duty. They would be erected locally within panchayats/villages as well as urban sites—likely near Amrit Sarovars or local schools or other prominent locations, they said.
