The Yogi Adityanath cabinet on Wednesday met at the Mahakumbh and made several decisions to develop the religious towns of Allahabad (Prayagraj), Chitrakoot, Varanasi and Vindhyachal.
He said the government had decided to form a Prayagraj-Chitrakoot Development Region and intended to set up a Varanasi-Vindhya Development Region too.
“This would be on the lines of the National Capital Region,” Adityanath said at a news conference organised at the Kumbh Mela after a meeting with his 54 cabinet colleagues. These would be separate development authorities with dedicated budgets, he said, adding: “This will expedite the development work in these areas.”
“We want continuous development of Prayagraj and its surrounding areas. For this, we felt the need for a separate development region. The Ganga Expressway, as planned before, would start from Prayagraj and pass through Mirzapur, Bhadohi, Kashi, Chandauli and Ghazipur. It will connect the Purvanchal Expressway in Ghazipur and the National Highway in Sonbhadra.
“We have also decided to build a six-lane bridge over the Ganga between Hetapatti and Salori in Prayagraj and a four-lane bridge in Arail,” he said.
Adityanath said the Bundelkhand Expressway would connect the Ganga Expressway in Chitrakoot and extend till Rewa in Madhya Pradesh.
The chief minister and his cabinet colleagues took a dip in the Ganga and were seen tossing river water at each other. They also performed Ganga puja with the help of over a dozen priests.
Deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak said: “The country and UP are running according to Sanatana tradition.”
The Adityanath government has allegedly focused on Hindu appeasement and
is doing everything possible to keep the majority community in good humour for future elections.
Samajwadi Party president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said: “The Kumbh is a religious event and holding cabinet meetings there is a bad practice. The government is not only doing politics in the name of the Kumbh but also taking political decisions there.
“The Adityanath government has no concept of development and this is why they don’t take up any development work. Their decisions are politically motivated to woo people and not to benefit them,” he said.