“During his tour of Agra on October 26, the chief minister will be visiting all the places inside Taj Mahal,” said UP principal secretary, tourism, Awnish Awasthi. Yogi will be the first BJP CM of UP to visit the Taj.
He will also inspect the area along the Yamuna for a proposed corridor from the river up to the monument.
Yogi’s plan to visit Taj Mahal was announced after a series of controversies erupted, beginning with a UP tourism department booklet not mentioning the monument in its list of development projects in the state. Subsequently, BJP MLA Sangeet Som called Taj Mahal a “blot on Indian history” and BJP MP Vinay Katiyar said it was originally a Shiva temple.
However, addressing a rally in Gorakhpur last week, Yogi called Taj Mahal the “pride of India” and referred to it as a “world class monument”. This was a significant departure from his remarks at a rally in Bihar last year, when he had said that the Taj does not represent Indian culture and that visiting foreign dignitaries should be presented with the Gita rather than replicas of Taj Mahal.
Last time a UP CM visited the Taj was Akhilesh Yadav. More than two years ago, he sat on one of the benches in front of the monument along with his wife and Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav on Valentine’s Day.
