BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who came to attend the birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi on the Amritapuri campus at Vallikkavu on Thursday, literally stole the show.
Thousands of devotees of Amma, who came to attend the celebrations, cheered at each word uttered by him. From the beginning, he was in no doubt about how to start with. When he began addressing the gathering ‘’sahodari sahodaranmare’’ in Malayalam, the entire audience erupted by cheering him. When he continued to say that he was fortunate enough to live in the era of Mata and receive the blessings of her directly, the amused large gathering continued to cheer him. After reading out the speech in Malayalam for a few minutes, he started speaking in English.
Showering praises on Mata for her humanitarian services and contributions to the empowerment of women, healthcare sectors and her green initiatives, he switched to Hindi. Naturally, he gained his full flow and was in his oratorical best, enthralling his fan following comprising predominantly youths and students.
The focus of his speech was on the importance of revisiting the spiritual values of Bharat and the country’s prospects for emerging as a super power. When he said that Mata’s birthday fete was not an individual’s birthday celebration but the ‘’shilanyas’’ for building a modern India, the entire crowd again erupted into a frenzy, seeing in him an inspiring leader.
When he referred to the terrorist attacks in Nairobi and on a church in Peshawar, he was stirring the masses to think about the human cost of terrorist attacks. It was for the second time in a gap of a few months that he was visiting Kerala; first to attend a meeting at Sivagiri Matt and now at Amritapuri. In both these visits, he has left a deep impact on the masses. On both occasions, there were people lined up along the road to see and greet him, a rare sight during the visit of a national leader these days.