Vrindavan : Five helipads have been built as well as hundreds of policemen are being deployed and CCTV cameras are being installed in this Uttar Pradesh town ahead of President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit Nov 16.
However, the residents are unhappy as the security arrangements are interfering with their day-to-day life, often triggering traffic jams which last for hours.
Mukherjee will be here to lay the foundation stone of a Sri Krishna temple.
Elaborate security arrangements are being made for his visit, including deployment of plainclothes detectives.
“For a whole week, the district administration will be focussing on Vrindavan… forget routine work or the plight of the agitating farmers of Gokul area, who are lodged in jail,” said resident Ram Narain.
Activist Vrindavan Jagan Nath said: “It looks like we are waiting to celebrate the arrival of a colonial emperor in 1920….”
The sate governor, chief minister, several ministers, local parliamentarain Hema Malini and hordes of bureaucrats and senior police officials are likely to receive the president.
Another resident, Girdhar Brajbasi said: “He (the President) should have come as a commoner and mingled with us…”