CPI(M) takes exception to 'yagyashala' in HP Raj Bhawan

The setting up of a 'yagyashala' in Raj Bhawan here, has kicked up a row with CPI(M) taking strong exception to the move and seeking President Pranab Mukherjee's intervention in disbanding it, to safeguard constitutional provisions, especially with regard to secularism.
"I would like to seek your intervention to safeguard the constitutional provisions which have been flagrantly violated by the constitutional head of the state," CPI(M) leader and Deputy Mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation, Tikender Panwar said in his letter to the President.
Noting that the yagyashala was inaugurated by the Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in the presence of Governor Acharya Devvrat and others, he said it goes completely and inherently against the basic tenets of our Constitution, especially with regard to secularism.

"The official residence of the Governor happens to be the institution of the state which is guided by the constitutional framework.
"The Governor has complete liberty to profess his religion but in his capacity as the Governor to have a permanent Yagyashalla in an apparatus of the state is highly condemnable and should be asked to disband so that the head of the state is not looked upon as a representative of one religion but of the democratic nation state which professes pluralism and not orthodoxy or theocracy," the letter said.