R ARIVANANTHAM
CHENNAI, DEC 25
After Rajkot in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Meerut in Uttar Pradesh the third temple in praise of Modi has been built by one of his ardent lover, a farmer at a village in Tamil Nadu. An application seeking permission to construct the fourth Modi Mandir in Muzaffarpur has already been submitted by some Muslim women to the collectorate there.
The Tamil Nadu temple also has framed pictures of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, current CM Edapadi Palanisamy and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The temple has come up at a village near Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu.
The 50-year old farmer, P Sankar, inaugurated the temple last week at his farm in sleepy Erakudi village about 63 km from Tiruchirappalli and performs ‘aarti,’ every day.
He says he was impressed and had benefitted by welfare schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi.
A traditional ‘kolam’ (rangoli) welcomes people to the modest, 8 x 8 ft tiled roof temple, built at a cost of about Rs 1.2 lakh and a smiling bust of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is placed at the centre.
While a traditional lamp is placed on both the sides of Modi’s bespectacled bust, it also features his trademark white beard and hairstyle.
Complete with a tilak on the forehead, the bust sports the Prime Minister in a pink kurta and a blue shawl.
The statue has been adorned with garlands and flowers. “The work to build a temple for Ayya (a Tamil word equivalent to Sir in English and it refers here to PM Modi) began about eight months back. I could not complete it immediately due to constraints and the temple was inaugurated last week,” Sankar said.
Asked what prompted him to build a temple and offer worship, he said he had benefitted from Centre’s welfare measures and liked the Prime Minister for such initiatives.
“I received Rs 2,000 (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi) scheme for farmers, gas (Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana) and toilet (Individual Household Latrine Scheme) facilities,” he said.
“I like him for his personality as well. I have been keenly watching him for long.”
“Now my desire is to perform a proper Kumbabishekam (consecration) for the temple,” he said.
Keen to see the Prime Minister in person, Sankar said he went to Mamallapuram near Chennai in October when Modi visited the seashore town for an informal summit with his Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“I could not meet him. But I am happy to got a glimpse of his cavalcade from a distance,” he said.
The farmer said he was self-made man after struggling for years in a Gulf country to buy land in his village.
The temple has portraits of deities, Mahatma Gandhi, noted freedom fighter and Congress icon K Kamaraj, AIADMK stalwarts MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa, Home Minister Amit Shah and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.
