“Wah Taj,” Netanyahu’s visit a bitter sweet moment for CM Yogi
The two-hour visit of visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara today was what can be called a bitter-sweet moment for the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mahant Adityanath Yogi under who’s rule, the UP Tourism had dropped the monument a few months ago, from its Tourism Booklet.
Mr. Netanyahu and Sara spent over two hours at the Taj Mahal. They were accorded a traditional welcome by folk artistes from Brij, and received by Chief Minister Yogi, at the Kheria airport in Agra today. Before departing for the most visited tourist spot in India, the Israeli PM and wife spent some time at the Amar Vilas Hotel before departing in a golf cart to see the Taj. For the two-hour duration of the visit, the monument was sealed off to tourists and Agra remained on high alert with security along the route and to the airport heightened for the security of the visiting dignitaries.
Just a few months ago, CM Yogi had expressed his reservations regarding the importance of the Taj Mahal as far as India was concerned and is reported to have remarked that the Taj Mahal had no connection with India’s culture. This statement was made at Darbhanga, Bihar at a function to mark three years of the Narendra Modi government, where CM Yogi had stressed that the Prime Minister’s practice of gifting Bhagwad Gita and the Indian epic Ramayan to foreign dignitaries was the perfect example of propagating India’s culture and values. In this context, he had said, “Foreign dignitaries visiting the country used to be gifted replicas of the Taj Mahal and other minarets which did not reflect Indian culture.” This statement of CM Yogi on the monument that draws throngs of tourists to it, year after year, had raised an outcry, in the wake of which the Chief Minister made his maiden visit to the monument in October last year and stated that the controversy over the 17th century monument was “unwarranted” as it was built by the labourers of India. Yogi thus became the first BJP CM of Uttar Pradesh to tour the monument built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
However, reservations or no, the CM went all out on Tuesday to welcome these “special friends”of Prime Minister Modi to his state and ensured a red carpet welcome for PM Netanyahu and his wife Sara.
Mr. Netanyahu is in India for a 6-day official visit, returned to New Delhi on Tuesday evening in order to inaugurate the 3rd annual Raisina Dialogue, India’s premiere foreign policy and geo-political conference. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also took part in the inaugural session of the three-day conference, which has an impressive lineup of more than 150 speakers and over 550 delegates. The Raisina Dialogue is jointly organized by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation, and will take place at the Taj Palace Hotel in Delhi’s diplomatic enclave. The theme of the Raisina Dialogue this year is ‘Managing Disruptive Transitions: Ideas, Institutions and Idioms’.
