In the Cabinet rejig that took place on Sunday, Uma Bharti was relieved of her duties as the Minister of Water Resources and given charge of a low-profile Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry. There have been several reports doing that rounds that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not happy with her work on the Ganga project.
However, she dismissed the reports saying that not once in her term as the Minister, did the Prime Minister pull her up for her work. Although she asserted that she was scolded by the Prime Minister twice for putting on weight. “On both the occasions, he rebuked me over for putting on weight,” she said.
Stating that she would continue to work for the clean Ganga project, she quoted a Mohammad Rafi song: “Mera toh jo bhi kadam hai woh teri rah mein hai, tu kahin bhi rahe tu meri nigah mein hai”.
The Union Minister will soon be holding a Ganga padyatra to create awareness about keeping the Ganga clean. She justified herself by saying,
It was claimed that I failed (at WRD ministry). Nitinji (Gadkari) himself said he was associated with me on the issues of Ganga. How did he get the portfolio if we failed? This means we did not fail on the clean Ganga front. Whatever groundwork was required to be done was done.
झांसी निरीक्षण के दरमियान लक्ष्मी ताल के लिए आया हुआ पैसा लक्ष्मी ताल में ही लगेगा। अब यह योगी की सरकार है, बहुत तेजी से काम होगा। pic.twitter.com/52x9qEmP8p
— Uma Bharti (@umasribharti) September 1, 2017
She said that the yatra would begin in October and she would undertake it in phases spanning over a year. She added that it was at the time when she was the Minister that the mega project of interlinking the major rivers came out of official files.
Speaking about the work done by her, she said nearly all villages along the Ganga have become open defecation free (ODF), the Ken-Betwa interlinking project was about to begin and even the Damanganga-Par-Tapi-Narmada project was in the initial stages.
