Prime Minister Narendra Modi has turned 74. On Tuesday, on the occasion of his birthday, he inaugurated the houses of the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. He had reached Odisha, where he enjoyed a special sweet dish kheer at the house of a tribal family. The special thing is that along with kheer, he also remembered his mother. PM Modi’s mother Hiraben Modi passed away in December 2022.
PM Modi spent most of his time in Odisha on his birthday. He launched the state government’s flagship women-centric initiative Subhadra Yojana besides railway and national highway projects. Addressing a function here, Modi recalled how he used to visit his mother every year on his birthday and seek her blessings.
He said, ‘Before coming here, I had also gone to the house of one of our tribal families for their housewarming ceremony. My sister from that family happily fed me kheer! And when I was eating kheer, it was natural that I remembered my mother.’
He said, ‘Because when my mother was alive, I would always go to seek her blessings on my birthday, and my mother would feed me jaggery. But my mother is not here, today a tribal mother fed me kheer and blessed me on my birthday.’
PM Modi visited Sabar Sahi slum in Gadkana, Bhubaneswar and inaugurated houses of PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana)-Urban beneficiaries. Modi was accompanied by Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi. He spent about 30 minutes with the PMAY-Urban beneficiaries and interacted with them. Residents of the slum welcomed him traditionally by offering him ‘Ang Vastra’ and applying chandan on his forehead.
(With agency input)