New Delhi, Sep 16 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will join simultaneous flag-offs of bike rallies in Varanasi and Vadnagar on Thursday marking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday and 25 years in public office.
While Naidu, an NDA ally, will attend the Varanasi programme along with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan, also an NDA partner, along with Union Minister Anupriya Patel and Shinde, will be present at the flag-off in Vadnagar, Modi’s birthplace in Gujarat.
The rallies are among a series of programmes the BJP has lined up across the country as it seeks to turn Modi’s birthday into the launch of a month-long outreach.
Modi served as Gujarat chief minister from October 2001 until May 2014, when he became prime minister.
He was first elected to the Lok Sabha from Varanasi in 2014 and retained the seat in 2019 and 2024.
The Varanasi-to-Vadnagar ‘Seva Sankalp’ bike rally will be flagged off simultaneously with another travelling in the opposite direction from Vadnagar to Varanasi.
The rallies will begin on September 17, Modi’s birthday, and culminate on October 7, the day he first took office as Gujarat chief minister in 2001.
Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel will also attend the flag off of the Vadnagar leg of the bike rally.
Around 1,000 youths are expected to participate in the two-way journey, which, organisers said, will cover nearly 40,000 km through 193 districts and about 1,159 villages in 10 states.
Cleanliness and tree-plantation drives, water conservation initiatives and campaigns for a drug-free, tuberculosis-free and plastic-free India will be undertaken along the route.
Naidu, the TDP chief, is scheduled to visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple before attending the flag-off in Varanasi.
Elsewhere, BJP president Nitin Nabin will light an ‘Aashirwad Ka Diya’ at Ram Ghat in Ujjain as part of the nationwide programmes.
The party has also appealed to people to light lamps at their homes in the evening as a gesture of gratitude for Modi’s years in public office.
Modi’s birthday will be observed by the BJP as ‘Seva Diwas’, with blood donation camps among programmes planned across the country.
These will kick off the party’s ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’, which will run from September 17 to October 17 and will see welfare outreach, exhibitions, seminars and programmes aimed particularly at young people. PTI SBR ACB VN VN
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