Narendra Modi to be given God-like presence at Bihar puja pandals

NEW DELHI: Brand Modi is being given a local touch and extended to the puja pandals in Bihar. Now on, he will be as much a part of festivities in Patna as he is of Navratra celebrations in Ahmedabad.

A song, posters of BJP's PM hopeful wearing a Bihari "gamcha" and an invite for the hunkar rally in Patna will be part of the BJP's offering to puja festivities in the state.

Last month when Modi told his story of starting life as a tea vendor in New Delhi, his party leaders in Bihar saw in it a way of reaching out to people cutting across the state's caste and social barriers. Sensing that Modi's humble background and his words of being a "sevak, not a shashak and a daas, not a nath" could have touched several hearts in the state, the BJP has geared up for a strategy aimed at upsetting friend-turned-foe Nitish Kumar's caste calculations in the run-up to 2014 polls.

This tactic even reflects in a song on Modi that the BJP is planning to play at puja pandals, as it mobilises people for his hunkar rally on October 27. Composed by the party's cultural cell, the final stanza of the song dumps caste and religion-based politics. During pujas, BJP plans to have a Modi stall where it will play the Namo song and put up his posters in different local attires and moods.

"We are trying to reach out to a cross section of society to widen our social base," said Dharmendra Pradhan, BJP general secretary in-charge of Bihar.

Puja pandals and politics have been strange bedfellows in eastern India, particularly in West Bengal. In the 1980s, images of the Bofors guns were put up at puja pandals, a Bihar politician recalled.

The BJP has pulled out all the stops to ensure that the rally "surpasses all past rallies" even as the acrimony between the party and CM Nitish Kumar gets more bitter. With two slogans- "vishwasghaat ko dhikkaar hunkar utha Bihar" and "nai soch, nai umeed" the BJP is planning a door-to-door campaign to extend invitations to people for the rally, besides using online registration and missed call registration.