and attend the temple’s kapat (portals) opening ceremony. and attend the temple’s kapat (portals) opening ceremony.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is set to visit the Kedarnath temple on Friday, his first trip outside Delhi after he returned from nearly eight-week sabbatical. He would trek to the shrine located on the foothills of the Himalayas and attend the temple’s kapat (portals) opening ceremony.

Rahul would reach Dehradun airport Thursday morning from where he would take a helicopter to Gaurikund. He would start his 21-kilometre trek from there. According to Surendra Kumar, media in-charge of Uttarakhand CM, Rahul would stay overnight at Linchauli and next morning, leave for Kedarnath taking the new trek route.

Sources said AICC general secretary in-charge of Uttarakhand Ambika Soni and state Congress president Kishore Upadhyay would accompany the Congress vice-president on his trip to the temple. The Uttarakhand government has undertaken special exercise to give a new shape to Kedarpuri. Despite facing adverse weather situation, a team of Nehru Institute of Mountaineering has been continuing the restoration works in Kedarnath temple area after the June 2013 flash flood and landlside.

Rahul’s visit to the temple assume political dimension given the fact that a view had emerged in the Congress after the Lok Sabha election defeat the party’s proximity to minorities had cost it dearly.

Many believe Congress’s aggressive pro-minority stance has proved counter-productive and suggest the need to strike a balance. Senior leader A K Antony had last year openly suggested that proximity to minority communities had led people to doubt is secularism, a view which found acceptance among many Congress leaders.

AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed had aired similar views in the Congress Working Committee which met immediately after the debacle. While Congress has time and again asserted that secularism was an article of faith for the party, many feel there is lack of ideological clarity. The party had in fact asked its leaders at all levels to hold a discussion on “what are the core non-negotiable elements of the party’s ideology”.

— With ENS, Dehradun

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