PM visits Garhwa Ghat Ashram, Shastri's ancestral house

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today visited Garhwa Ghat Ashram here, which has considerable following among the backward castes, and paid tributes to former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri at his ancestral home.
Modi, who has been canvassing for three days in the district which elected him to Lok Sabha, offered prayers and also fed the cows at the ashram's shelter. The visit came on the last day of campaigning in Uttar Pradesh.
The head guru at the Garhwa Ghat Ashram has traditionally come from the Yadav caste and has followers spread across the poll-round region. Modi's visit is seen as an attempt to reach out to the Yadav community, which has traditionally aligned with the Samajwadi Party.

The head guru offered his blessings and heaped praise on Modi. Though people expected Modi to make a brief speech but it did not happen and a senior party functionally said it was never planned.
Modi has held a roadshow here and attended a number of public events in the city along with several rallies in the region as part of BJP's last push for a good show, particularly in the holy city, in the final phase when polling will be held in 40 seats on March 8.
BJP sources believe that Modi's visit and his public felicitation by the ashram will send out "good signals" to voters, especially the OBCs and the Dalits.

The Prime Minister later drove to Shastri's ancestral home to pay tributes to him.

Modi has often accused the Congress of not giving due respect to leaders who were not from the Nehru-Gandhi family.
Modi's Lok Sabha constituency has five assembly seats three of which are presently held by the saffron party.
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Addressing a gathering of intelligensia here last night, Modi lashed out at the opposition parties, saying "one who is selfless is not liked by the selfish".
Quoting a verse by medieval era poet Kabir, who was believed to be born in the temple city, he said, "Those who are selfish tend to praise each other but the one who is selfless is never liked by them".

"This appears to be my fate", said the Prime Minister pointing towards himself.
Modi, who held a mammoth roadshow here followed by a rally as part of the campaign for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, laid stress on building "a public movement for development".
Drawing parallels with the struggle for Independence, Modi said, "The country never had any dearth of brave people ready to give up their lives for their motherland."
"But success came only when Mahatma Gandhi arrived at the scene and made the freedom struggle a mass-based one, transforming people from all walks of life into freedom fighters," he said.

Lamenting that elections had become "five-year contracts wherein the voter thinks that development is the job of the government", Modi said this was leading to a "chasm between the people and governments" which should be corrected.
"Many political parties have deliberately exploited this chasm. We have seen the Left in West Bengal and the Congress which has been declining across the country.
"Performance of various family-controlled parties is also there for all to see. Time has come to evaluate various ideologies and the people propagating these", he said.
Lauding the performance of BJP governments in states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, Modi said the success achieved in these areas was on account of "the model of development the party has. Whenever it has got an opportunity, the BJP has scaled new heights of development".

"The difference between the BJP governments and those by other parties can also be gauged by the example that we laid stress on building toilets and today 500 cities across the country have become open defecation-free.
"But unfortunately, none of these cities are in Uttar Pradesh which is the largest and the most populous state," he said.
He said the government decided to provide free gas connections to five crore poor families and has covered 1.8 crore. "At this rate, we will achieve our objective within the next three years," he added.
The Prime Minister will be in his Lok Sabha constituency till tomorrow, the last day of campaign for assembly polls.

He also urged people to exercise their franchise, saying the election is "a holy festival of democracy".