Spending hundreds of crores of rupees by the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments on Krishna Pushkaralu is nothing but waste of public money and also against the constitution. This was the opinion expressed by rationalists and atheists on Monday.
According to them, Andhra Pradesh is spending over Rs 1,700 crore on the mega event, while Telangana has released Rs 825 crore for providing amenities to the devotees during the festival.
“Why spending so much money on bathing ghats, deployment of policemen and arranging special buses to promote superstition among people?” noted sexologist G Samaram said.
"India is a secular state and celebrating one particular religion’s event in such a big way spending huge money is not at all good,” Samaram said.
He said Pushkar entering the river was a superstitious belief and by promoting this the government was going against the Constitution.
His brother Vijayam said it was not just the money they spent but the very attitude of mixing state with religion is objectionable.
“They are religionising the politics and politicising the religion so that they have an advantage in elections,” he said.
He said no one denies that the government can make minimum arrangements for such events to maintain law and order.
“But encouraging people to come in large numbers, inviting religious heads and making this an agenda of the government for 10 to 12 days in a way that the governance comes to a standstill is not correct attitude,” said Vijayam.
