The Uttarakhand government has decided to heed the advice of the Union Health Ministry and cancel the Kanwar Yatra this year owing to the impending third Covid wave.
The Uttar Pradesh government has thus backtracked on its earlier decision to allow the yatra from July 25.
It seems wiser sense prevailed after the Indian Medical Association’s Uttarakhand chapter wrote to Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami requesting him to cancel the event in view of public safety. The Yatra had been cancelled last year, too, amid the first wave.
"Even the gods will not want people to die. The priority, at the moment ,is to save lives," Dhami had told reporters in New Delhi on Sunday when asked whether or not the yatra will be held. Every year, tens of thousands of ''Kanwariyas'' (devotees of Lord Shiva) from various northern states travel on foot or by other means to collect water from River Ganga at Haridwar to offer at Shiva temples in their areas.
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