Three years after the Kedarnath floods washed away over 4,000 people, the recent spotting of a few skeletal remains has created fresh grounds for a blame game between the Congress and the BJP ahead of the Assembly elections in Uttarakhand.
On a recent trek to Kedarnath, a group of trekkers from Uttarakhand Mountaineers and Trekkers Association (MATA) spotted skeletal remains of people who are likely to have died while escaping the floods in June 2013.
On receiving this information, Chief Minister Harish Rawat gave instructions that combing operations must begin in the area where the skeletons were found.
However, as the news came out, the BJP started blaming the Congress government for maintaining a callous attitude towards disaster victims by letting their bodies rot.
Addressing the media on the issue on Monday, Mr. Rawat said: “Hundreds of bodies would be buried under the muck that was brought into the Kedar Valley during the deluge. And bodies would also be lying in the widespread forests of the Valley. While the BJP is trying to make it a political issue, I think it is hardly an issue as the bodies will be spotted every now and then.”
“The combing operations were never stopped by my government. They were stopped by the previous [Vijay Bahuguna’s] government,” Mr. Rawat said.
Reacting to Mr. Rawat’s statement, Mr. Bahuguna, who joined the BJP a few months ago, said: “I never gave instructions to stop the combing operations to find bodies in the Kedar Valley. Harish Rawat was a minister in the Central government when the disaster happened. If my decisions were wrong, then why did he not raise the issue then?”
