Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) [India], September 17 (ANI): On the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday on Thursday, top leaders and Union Ministers, including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, offered prayers at the historic Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi.
The delegation also included Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan, Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary and the BJP State President, along with other senior leaders.
Inside the sanctum sanctorum (Garbhagriha) of the temple, the dignitaries performed special Vedic darshan and pujan rituals, praying for the health, longevity and continued well-being of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who represents the Varanasi constituency in the Lok Sabha.
The temple priests conducted ceremonial prayers amid the chanting of Vedic hymns and presented prasad, garlands and traditional angavastrams to the visiting Chief Ministers and Union Ministers.
The visit to the holy shrine comes ahead of a series of commemorative welfare and public outreach events scheduled in the temple city, including the felicitation of 51 'Seva Yatris' and the formal flag-off of the 'Seva Sankalp' cross-country motorcycle rally connecting PM Modi’s workplace, Varanasi, with his birthplace, Vadnagar in Gujarat.
Meanwhile, Rajnath Singh, CM Yogi Adityanath and Chandrababu Naidu, along with Chirag Paswan, distributed 76 kg of laddus to the 'Bikers Yatris' after performing jalaabhishek.
Earlier in the day, marking the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, Lucknow Mayor Sushma Kharakwal unveiled a 30-day continuous mega sanitation drive across the state capital, announcing the daily convergence of the municipal corporation's entire workforce into dedicated zones to clear sewers, water bodies, and drainage lines.
Speaking to ANI, extending warm greetings to the Prime Minister on behalf of the civic administration and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, Lucknow Mayor Sushma Kharakwal announced that the civic body is scaling up its regular sanitation efforts into a synchronised 30-day non-stop campaign.
"Today is the birthday of our popular Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. On behalf of the entire Lucknow Municipal Corporation and all BJP workers, I extend my heartiest congratulations and best wishes to him on his birthday," Kharakwal said.
Outlining the specialised sanitation strategy being deployed this year, the Mayor stated that the entire municipal sanitation workforce will converge on specific civic zones each day to address targeted sanitation challenges systematically.
"We have launched a month-long continuous cleanliness drive. I have been consistently doing this work for the past three years, but this time, we are running it with a different approach. Every day, zone-wise, our entire workforce will deploy to a specific zone," she explained.
Detailing the focus areas of the campaign, Kharakwal said the drive will address civic infrastructure ranging from water bodies to underground drainage networks.
"One day, water bodies will be cleaned; another day, sewers will be cleared; and on another, all drains across Lucknow will be cleaned. In this way, our work will continue non-stop for an entire month," the Mayor added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was born in 1950 to Hiraba and Damodardas Modi in Vadnagar in Gujarat's Mehsana district.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is organising the ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’ across the country from September 17 to October 17 to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday, with a series of service-oriented programmes and public outreach initiatives. (ANI)
Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath, Chandrababu Naidu offer prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Temple on PM Modi's birthday
