A day after he broke his Chaitri Navratri fast, BJP’s Prime Ministerial aspirant Narendra Modi, on Thursday, headed a massive and colourful road-show here for his first-ever Lok Sabha election, that could catapult him to India’s highest executive office.
His five-km-long rally culminated at the District Returning Office where he filed nomination papers for the poll from Vadodara, Gujarat’s cultural capital, where he began his public life as an RSS pracharak (campaigner) in the 1970s.
Thursday was the last day of filing of nominations for the single-phase polling across Gujarat on April 30. The Vadodara constituency has 14.75 lakh voters, including 17% OBCs and 10% Muslims.
Flanked to his left by Mrs Shubhangini Raje, former Maharani of Vadodara princely state, and a humble “chaiwala”, Kiran Mahida, the Gujarat Chief Minister filed his papers at around 1130 hours before the District Returning Officer.
The main opposition, Congress Party, has fielded its Rajya Sabha MP and General Secretary Madhusudan Mistry, who calls himself a “chawlwala”, whereas the Aam Admi Party has nominated an engineer-turned-entrepreneur, Sunil Digambar Kulkarni.
In a brief address, Modi recalled the philanthropic and people-friendly measures undertaken by the then Maharaja of Baroda, Sayaji Rao Gaekwad. “I also studied in a school set up by the Baroda state,” he said, and thanked the Gaekwads. Baroda was later rechristened as Vadodara, the original name of the Banyan City.
Modi also recalled Vadodara as his “ Karmabhoomi ”, the good governance practices adopted by the Gaekwads and said he had been encouraging young IAS probationers to follow a book penned by the ex-Maharaja in this regard.