India, Aug. 9 -- Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday led a Tricolour march in Lucknow to mark the 101st anniversary of the Kakori Train Action, with thousands of people joining the procession from his official residence to the state Assembly. The march began at around 9.20 am from 5, Kalidas Marg and reached the Vidhan Bhavan after covering nearly two kilometres in about 30 minutes. Adityanath walked with Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak and state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary. The procession was accompanied by patriotic songs, chants of "Vande Mataram" and "Bharat Mata Ki Jai". Around 30,000 people, including Cabinet ministers, BJP leaders, schoolchildren and young people, took part in the march. A group of children carried a 101-foot-long Tricolour to the Assembly.

Adityanath also interacted with children during the march and took selfies with them and Chaudhary. UP Women Commission vice-chairperson Aparna Yadav and BJP state vice-president Pooja Pal were among those who participated. Yadav said the participation of Gen-Z showed that young people were connected with the country's patriotic traditions. Speaking at the Kakori Train Action centenary programme, Adityanath said the revolutionaries involved in the incident had a single objective, to free India from British rule. "Kakori was not a dacoity. The sole objective of our great revolutionaries was to secure India's freedom and drive the British out," he said.

The British administration had described the incident as a dacoity, but Adityanath said it was unfortunate that the same description continued to be used after Independence. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with giving the incident its historical identity by referring to it as the Kakori Train Action. The Kakori Train Action took place on August 9, 1925, near Kakori in Lucknow. Hindustan Republican Association revolutionaries stopped a train carrying govt treasury money and seized the funds to support their armed struggle against British rule. The incident became one of the defining episodes of the revolutionary movement in northern India.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.