PM Narendra Modi “demands importance” in Varanasi on his birthday

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has beaten Bahujan Samaj Party President Mayawati in celebrating his birthday. On September 17, Bharatiya Janata Party members lit earthen lamps at 68 places and distributed 68 kg of laddus in Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency, Varanasi; the local administration invited 68 poor students of a Kashi Vidyapeeth school to interact with the PM in the lawn of the guest house of the Diesel Locomotive Works; 68 students of Panini Kanya Mahavidyalaya of the Arya Samaj conducted a ritual wishing for a long life for PM Modi, and the Yogi Adityanath government ordered the release of 68 prisoners, who had been languishing in different jails in Uttar Pradesh.

While interacting with the poor students at the DLW lawn, Modi asked one while pointing his finger towards a decorated cutout in the shape of a number put up in a corner besides a bigger cutout of the PM, "What is written there?" “68”, the student correctly answered.

Modi was in Varanasi to celebrate his 68th birthday. The entire city was decorated with Chinese lights and roads were repaired in the areas from where the PM was supposed to pass.

This celebration could be compared only with Mayawati’s birthday bashes on January 15 every year before 2009, when she had realised that a large number of people have been disapproving of her boastfully orchestrated functions and this was damaging her prospects as a politician.

Even rival party leaders believe that by henceforth making her birthday celebration a low key affair, the BSP boss has succeeded to a large extent in making people forget her annual display of self appraisal.

Reacting over Maya and Modi’s birthday functions, Dwijendra Tripathi, spokesperson of Uttar Pradesh Congress said, “Mayawati ji’s birthday celebration was a natural and spontaneous overflow of feeling of her supporters. Still she discontinued it because of her respect for her poor and downtrodden voters. But in Modi’s case, it looks like a theatrics, organised meticulously to appease someone just because he wants to appear the most important man of the day. It is like demanding importance just before 2019 Lok Sabha elections.”