Narendra Modi nurtured Nepal link 16 years ago

AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a two-day visit to Nepal on Sunday to strengthen ties with Kathmandu. In diplomacy, a big nation is expected to demonstrate sensitivity to a smaller neighbour. Some 16 years ago, Modi's action exemplified that graciousness when he ensured that an eight-year-old Nepali boy found alone in Kalupur railway station was admitted to a school and rehabilitated.

Jeet Bahadur (now 24) would have been destined to a life on the streets had it not been for Modi's intervention. At the time - it was 1998 and Modi was the general secretary of the BJP- the future PM led Jeet by the hand to Laxman Vidyapith School on the RSS-run campus of Sanskar Dham in Ahmedabad.

Fortunes turned around for Jeet then. He had come to Rajasthan to find work along with his brother. He could not adjust and sat in a train to flee to Gorakhpur. He ended up in Ahmedabad by accident and was found crying on the station by a woman BJP worker. She took Jeet to Modi who assumed a personal interest in the child's wellbeing.

"Modiji used to regularly track his progress," said R K Shah, trustee of Sanskar Dham.

Jeet is studying in the third semester of BBA and wishes to become a management whiz. "Narendra Modi is more than father to me," says Jeet. "My mentor has kept in touch with me. And I am so grateful that he has found my parents with whom I shall soon reunite."