PM Modi headed for Kedarnath to unveil Shankaracharya statue

Dehradun: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at Dehradun’s Jollygrant airport on Friday morning on his way to Kedarnath to offer prayers at the Shiva temple there and unveil a 12-foot statue of Adi Guru Shankaracharya.

He will also inaugurate the rebuilt samadhi of the eighth-century seer which was damaged in the 2013 Kedarnath deluge.

The historic visit will also see him inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of reconstruction projects worth over Rs 400 crore at the Himalayan temple.

Work on the Shankaracharya statue, weighing around 35 tonnes, had begun in 2019.

Modi was received at the airport by Uttarakhand Governor Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (retd), Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, and his cabinet colleagues Subodh Uniyal and Ganesh Joshi, besides Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Premchand Aggarwal.

Unveiling of the statue will be streamed live at the 12 jyotirlingas, four Shankaracharya mutts (monasteries), his birthplace, and several prominent temples across the country.

Kedarpuri reconstruction is considered the prime minister’s dream project whose progress is reviewed personally by him at regular intervals.