Atal Bihari Vajpayee's ashes taken to state capitals for 'asthi kalash yatra'

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah handed over urns containing the ashes of the late leader to the party's state unit chiefs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah handed over urns containing the ashes of the late leader to the party's state unit chiefs. (PTI)

New Delhi: The ashes of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were taken to various states from the national capital today for immersion in rivers across the country as part of the BJP's 'asthi kalash yatra'. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah handed over urns containing the ashes of the late leader to the party's state unit chiefs. Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj joined Modi and Shah in handing over the urns here. The ashes of the former prime minister was were brought to Madhya Pradesh by state BJP president Rakesh Singh and received by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Bhopal. The urn would be kept at the state party headquarters and immersed in 10 rivers in the state in the coming days. In Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur received the urn and it was kept at the iconic Ridge for people to pay tributes to the late leader. The former prime minister's ashes were immersed in the Beas river in Punjab. It was brought by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and state BJP chief Shwait Malik. In Haryana, Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the ashes would be immersed in rivers at two places, Pehowa in Kurukshetra and Hathnikundin Yamunanagar on August 23. Rajasthan Minister Arun Chaturvedi brought the ashes to Rajasthan. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje would immerse the ashes in Pushkar, BJP state chief Madan Lal Saini in Kota and Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria in Beneshwar Dham. In Bihar's capital Patna, the urn was kept at the state BJP headquarters and the immersion of the ashes will take place from tomorrow. The ashes of the late leader also reached Odisha today and will be immersed in the Bay of Bengal in Puri tomorrow. In neighbhouring West Bengal, the ashes will be immersed in various rivers of the state and at Gangasagar. In Jharkhand the ashes would be immersed in five rivers tomorrow. In the northeastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh the ashes will be immersed in the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, and at the holy Parashuram Kund, respectively. The ashes were immersed in the Sabarmati river in Gujarat by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani in the presence of state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani and key party leaders. Rupani announced that the place from where the ashes were immersed would now be called as 'Atal Ghat'. The ashes were brought to the Hyderabad and will be immersed in the Godavari, Krishna, Musi and Tungabhadra rivers in the coming days. The urn has been kept at the state headquarters. The urn containing the ashes of the former prime minister would be brought to Uttar Pradesh tomorrow. The ashes of the former prime minister will be immersed in over 100 rivers across the country following a procession.