Putting to rest the allegations being raised by the BJP against the Harish Rawat-led State government over a payment of ₹47.19 lakh to the captain of Indian cricket team Virat Kohli, allegedly from the funds meant for disaster-related works, Chief Minister Rawat, on Saturday said that the BJP was “unnecessarily” trying to “rake up” the issue.
In a reply to the Right to Information (RTI) application filed by one Ajendra Ajay, who is associated with the BJP, it was found that a payment of Rs 47.19 lakh was made to Mr. Kohli by the Rudraprayag District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) for his 60-second television commercial promoting Uttarakhand tourism, of which Mr Kohli is the brand ambassador.
In the year 2013 a massive disaster had hit Uttarakhand and the areas, especially the ones along the Char Dham routes, including Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, had witnessed loss of lives and property. In the 60-second Mr. Kohli is seen promoting Uttarakhand tourism and giving the message that the State was safe for travel.
Mr. Ajay had alleged that the State government, while it always "begged" the Central government for funds to carry out works related to relief and rehabilitation in disaster-affected areas, had spent “a huge amount" of money on advertisement, while the money "should have been used for reconstruction and rehabilitation works”.
On Saturday Mr. Rawat said, “The BJP must tell whether it is wrong to advertise that Kedarnath is safe for travel and whether Virat Kohli is the wrong person to propagate that.”
While Mr Ajay said that he would ask for an enquiry into this issue since “it is misuse of funds meant for disaster-related works”, Mr Rawat said that while the BJP had paid actress Hema Malini in crores for the BJP’s ‘Sparsh Ganga’ campaign and while the Gujarat government had “splurged” money on actor Amitabh Bachchan for the campaign 'Khushboo Gujarat Ki', the party had no right to question the Congress government over spending “a few lakhs” for an advertisement promoting Uttarakhand tourism.
