Just like Ganga started in Uttarakhand and serves India, UCC also starts here but will reach everyone: Dhami to News18 | Exclusive

Boxes of ladoos, congratulatory calls and a constant flow of people at Pushkar Singh Dhami’s Garhi Cantt residence in Dehradun . The Uttarakhand Chief Minister successfully piloted the Uniform Civil Code Bill without any objection in the Assembly. As supporters flocked to congratulate him on realizing the BJP’s pending agenda, CNN-News18 caught up with the Prime Minister for an exclusive chat. Edited excerpts:

As the captain of this ship and as a witness to history, how do you feel?

This is a proud moment. Uttarakhand is fortunate to have initiated this campaign. Just like the Ganga river originates in our state and provides water and life to the entire country, this vision was put before the people of Uttarakhand under the leadership of the Prime Minister during the elections to our Legislative Assembly. This is our promise, this is our dream. Our dream has come true. This is a very important day for us. This is a day to bear witness to history. I would like to express my gratitude to the people of Uttarakhand. They gave us the mandate of “sankalp” during the elections and gave us the opportunity to serve them.

Opposition leaders called it a political stunt.

The promises we made to the people of Uttarakhand, we are delivering on. I mean, we have a mandate from the people because we said that if we come to power, the first thing we will do is implement the UCC. At the first cabinet meeting of the new government, we decided to establish the UCC Committee. The committee worked hard for 20 months. It surveyed about 200,000 people. One-to-one interactions took place at a total of 43 locations. Thousands of people responded via the Internet. After all this, the bill showed up.

It looked like polygamy and halal food would be at the center of controversy, but now cohabitation rules are attracting the biggest criticism.

We thought about it carefully. We want our youth, our children, to be protected. When we drafted the UCC, we kept their protection in mind so that they would not be abused or exploited. All these aspects are taken into consideration. People will soon realize that this is for their own good.

Would you be willing to review the rules based on feedback?

This is an ongoing process. We have just launched it and are willing to modify it in the future if necessary.

The BJP-ruled state seems excited about it. Assam chief minister said he would see that. Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh also…

We expect other states will implement this move after hearing the wishes of their residents.

But your state has only 3% tribal population; other states have more. Will it be difficult to implement there?

Tribes are protected by many other provisions of the Constitution. Therefore, we took no action. But other states can do that after studying demographic data.