PM offers prayers at badrinath

Modi thanks the Election Commission for nod, says he got two days’ rest

BADRINATH Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers at the Badrinath temple on Sunday, the last day of his two-day visit to Uttarakhand. He reached Badrinath after spending around 20 hours at the Himalayan shrine of Kedarnath.

Modi offered prayers at the innermost sanctum in Badrinath, another temple in Uttarakhand’s char dham religious circuit, dedicated to Lord Vishnu.

Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee chief Mohan Prasad Thapliyal said the PM offered prayers at the temple for around 20 minutes and was given a greeting card made on a bhojpatra (birch leaves) by the temple’s priests. He was also given a shawl by the residents of Mana village, he said.

Modi took a walk inside the temple complex and later shook hands with the devotees and locals, Thapliyal said, adding that the PM also met pilgrims waiting near the shrine.

Stop telecast: Naidu to EC

Opposition leader and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu Sunday wrote to the EC, claiming that “continuous” telecast of the PM’s “private activities” at Badrinath and Kedarnath shrines was a violation of the poll code and should be stopped. “If continuous telecast of these activities of Prime Minister is not stopped, it could affect the level playing field envisaged by the model code of conduct, which the ECI is duty bound to implement,” he said in a letter written to Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora.