Narendra Modi, flanked by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh and senior leader and Modi’s confidante Amit Shah, witnesses a “Ganga aarti” fire ritual performed by Hindu priests on the banks of the River Ganges in Varanasi.


Agencies/Varanasi


Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi yesterday promised to clean up the holy city of Varanasi and the sought people’s support for it.
“By 2019, when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, we should have cleaned up the country,” Modi said on the banks of the river Ganges in Varanasi that elected him by a huge margin.
“We have to clean India and have to begin from Varanasi. People must be thinking why is this person talking of garbage? But that can change India,” he said after offering prayers to the holy river.
He said cleaning “our surroundings is also one way of serving Mother India. It’s with small chores that big goals are accomplished.”
“We have to ensure that Kashi (Varanasi) should not remain dirty. We would not let the city remain dirty,” he said.
As priests and onlookers chanted devotional songs, Modi prayed and lit a traditional oil lamp before climbing atop a flower-decked dais where he sat next to several senior BJP colleagues.
“Mother Ganga has decided my course. I will work under her guidance,” Modi told the crowd while thanking local residents who elected him by a crushing margin of 370,000 votes.
After landing at the Babatpur airport, Modi flew in a helicopter to the reserve police line grounds from where his heavily guarded cavalcade drove to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
As he walked through the narrow lanes leading to the seat of Lord Shiva, Modi was surrounded by a battery of National Security Guard commandos and special troopers of the Uttar Pradesh police’s anti-terrorist squad.
Accompanied by BJP president Rajnath Singh and close aide Amit Shah, Modi performed a 45-minute ‘puja’ at the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, one of the 12 ‘jyotirlingas’ in the country.
Sitting cross-legged, the Gujarat chief minister performed the puja aided by 11 specially commissioned priests.
Modi then performed the ‘jalabhishek’ (offering of Ganga water on the gold plated Shiva linga) after which a concoction of honey, jaggery, crushed sugar, ghee, curd, milk and ‘bhasma’ was offered to the reigning deity of Kashi.
Modi left for the Dashashwamedh Ghat on the banks of the river where he took part in the evening ‘Ganga Aarti’ and spent more than 90 minutes there.
As the soulful renditions and Vedic hymns were sung, Modi tapped along and seemed lost in the spiritually charged atmosphere.


The final tally of the 2014 Lok Sabha election:

BJP 282; Congress 44; AIADMK 37; Trinamool Congress 34; BJD 20; Shiv Sena 18; Telugu Desam 16; TRS 11; CPM 9; YSR Congress 9; LJP 6; NCP 6; Samajwadi Party 5; AAP 4; Akali Dal 4; RJD 4; AIUDF 3; PDP 3; Samta Party 3; Independents 3; Apna Dal 2; INLD 2; IUML 2; JD-S 2; JD-U 2; JMM 2; AINR; Congress 1; CPI 1; Kerala Congress-M 1; Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen 1; Naga Peoples Front 1; National Peoples Party 1; PMK 1; RSP 1; Sikkim Democratic Front 1; Swabhimani Paksha 1.
Total elected members 543