In an effort at making Prime Minister Narendra Modi closer to Tamil culture and shedding the saffron party’s northern tag, Union Home Minister Amit Shah kicked off the Pongal celebrations with his participation at the ‘Modi Pongal’ organised by the BJP state unit at Trichy on Monday.
Attired in the traditional Tamil dress code of white dhoti and shirt with an angavastram (long towel), Shah took part in the ‘Modi Pongal’ in which women cooked Pongal (rice with jaggery, milk and ghee) in 1008 clay pots. According to the BJP Women’s Wing, the organisers of the event held at Mannarpuram in the city had drawn more than 2000 women.
Pongal, the single most important festival celebrated for five days in Tamil Nadu in the second week of January, is considered the cultural expression of the Tamils. The saffron party has taken up the festival as a tool to reach out to a wider section. For, the DMK has been holding ‘Equality Pongal’ across the state on the first day of the festival on January 14, the first day of the Tamil month ‘Thai’. Along with Shah, Union Minister L Murugan, State BJP president Nainar Nagendran, women’s wing national president Vanathi Sreenivasan and MLA, K Annamalai participated in the programme.
Earlier in the day, Shah worshipped at the ancient Sri Jambukeswarar-Akilandeswari temple at Thiruvanaikaval and the famed Sri Ranganatha Swamy temple in Sri Rangam on the banks of the Cauvery.
On Sunday, addressing a massive rally in Pudukottai to mark the culmination of Nainar’s state-wide yatra, the BJP leader painted the DMK government as the most corrupt in the country and alleged that the sole agenda of Chief Minister MK Stalin was to coronate his son after him.