After Taj, now Lucknow missing in UP tourism list

Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath government may have tried to make amends by including the Taj Mahal in the annual calendar of UP Tourism for 2018 but it has now stirred another controversy by excluding Lucknow from the same list.

The 12-page calendar that was released two and a half months earlier as a damage control exercise after a section of BJP leaders denounced the Taj Mahal includes several tourist destinations but there is no mention of any destination from Lucknow.

Reacting sharply to the omission, Nawab Jafar Mir Abdullah, a Nawab of Oudh, said, “This is blasphemous because Lucknow remains a symbol of the Ganga-Jamuni culture of the state.  How can the government ignore Lucknow while promoting tourism?”

The calendar released by the UP Tourism department begins the year with a picture of the Magh Mela at the Sangam in Allahabad while the February page is devoted to Ram ki Pairi in Ayodhya.

For March, the tourism has rightly chosen a colorful picture of Barsane ki Holi in Mathura and April had a photograph of Gurudwara Nanakmata Saheb in Pilibhit.

In May, the calendar features the Devgarh Jain temple in Lalitpur and June brings the Sarnath Stup in Varanasi.

The Taj Mahal features in July and August has the Rani Jhansi Fort featured prominently.  The month of September has the Janamashtami celebrations in Mathura and October has the Vindhyachal Devi temple in Mirzapur.  In November, the calendar has the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple and December is devoted to the Goraksh Nath temple in Gorakhpur , of which chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Aditynath is the head priest.

The slogan ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas’ is featured on all the twelve pages of the calendar.  

“The slogan rings hollow because not a single Muslim or Christian shrine is included.

The tourism department could have included the Dewa Sharief shrine and the St Joseph’s Cathedral in the calendar”, said a senior bureaucrat.