LUCKNOW, Oct 3 (TNS): Taj Mahal, one of the World’s Seven Wonders, has found no mention in hardliner Hindu CM led state government tourism booklet on key attractions in Uttar Pradesh.
On the one hand, while the archaeological wonder that attracts nearly 60 lakh international tourists annually finds no mention in government’s 32-page glossy booklet titled ‘Uttar Pradesh Paryatan-Apaar Sambhavanaayein’ (UP Tourism-Unlimited Possibilities), the government has chosen to put on the cover of the booklet, the iconic Ganga Aarti of Varanasi.
One page of the booklet has also been dedicated to the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur, of which UP extremist chief minister Yogi Adityanath is the presiding priest.
The booklet was released in Lucknow at a press conference on World Tourism Day by UP’s tourism minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi.
The mysterious dropping of the Taj Mahal, a UNESCO World Heritage site, however, turned a raging conrtroversy in the wake of UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s statement in June this year.
At a public event in Bihar in June this year, Adityanath said: “Ramayana and the Gita represent Indian culture, not the Taj Mahal.” The CM had also suggested that gifting replicas of the Taj Mahal, a musoleum, as mementoes to foreign visitors or dignitaries, was inauspicious and “not a part of Indian culture”.
