For most 76-year-olds, a birthday means cake, a call from the grandchildren and perhaps a gentle argument about sugar. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it now means a month-long national exercise in seva.
The BJP’s Seva Sankalp Abhiyan marks 25 years since Modi first took public office as Gujarat chief minister. Ministries and state governments have been roped in, more than 500 locations are expected to participate, and the programme comes with 14 separate “modules” covering everything from health camps and cleanliness drives to overseas mahayagyas. Delhi has tied the celebrations to development projects worth around Rs 13,820 crore; Haryana has handed each deputy commissioner Rs 10 lakh for the campaign. There are diyas by the lakh, including a 5,000-diya portrait of Modi in Assam and 76,000 lamps at a midnight Ahmedabad event.
