BJP MP urges Uttarakhand people living outside to celebrate 'Igas' festival in native villages

Under this campaign, I have also been requesting people to register their votes in their native villages so that these places stay connected. Baluni, who is the BJPs national media head and chief spokesperson, said the broader idea behind his mission to revive Uttarakhands Lok Parv is to connect people who migrated from the state to their roots and trigger reverse migration.Main focus of this campaign is remote villages and far-flung places in Uttarakhand affected by migration.

With an aim to connect people with their roots in Uttarakhand, BJP MP Anil Baluni has been running a campaign to revive the local festival of 'Igas' or 'Budh Diwali' and exhorting people to celebrate it in their ancestral villages.

As part of the campaign started by Baluni in 2018, he also launched an initiative, called 'Apna Vote, Apne Gaon' (cast your vote in your own village), so that people who have migrated from these villages go back to the remote areas during elections.

Baluni said such initiatives will lead to the people of Uttarakhand coming back to their roots. It will revive the local economy.

Noting that migration has become a ''serious problem'' in remote villages, he said, ''The campaign to revive this 'Lok Parv' was launched to ensure that villages along China and Nepal don't get deserted. Under this campaign, I have also been requesting people to register their votes in their native villages so that these places stay connected.'' Baluni, who is the BJP's national media head and chief spokesperson, said the broader idea behind his mission to revive Uttarakhand's 'Lok Parv' is to connect people who migrated from the state to their roots and trigger reverse migration.

''Main focus of this campaign is remote villages and far-flung places in Uttarakhand affected by migration. So that people will travel at least once or twice in a year to these remote villages to celebrate this festival and cast their votes which will also usher economic activities in these border areas and wouldn't let these villages important for national security get deserted,'' he said.

With his efforts from last three years, he said that now this festival act as a tool to address the crisis of migration. Natives of Uttarakhand who now live in far-off cities are returning to their villages to celebrate Igas/Budh Diwali.

Delighted over the progress of his campaign, he said that this year even the people living in the plains in the state will be celebrating the festival.

''Igas/Budh Diwali has now become an identity of Uttarakhand, same as Garba is of Gujarat and Chhath Puja of Bihar,'' he said.

The folklore behind 'Igas or Budh Diwali' is that the news of Lord Ram's arrival in Ayodhya after completing 14 years of 'vanvas' reached the remote hills 11 days later. Therefore, the festival is celebrated 11 days after Diwali with the same fervour and gaiety.

The celebrations include distributing sweets and making traditional dishes. In Garhwal, people celebrate it by playing 'bhailo', a traditional form of fireworks, while in Kumaon, people worship cows and light 'diyas'.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)