Flashback Xi: Why Shinzo Abe’s visit to Ahmedabad felt different

AHMEDABAD: Most of the spots Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited with PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday may have been the same ones Chinese president Xi Jinping stopped by during his 2014 trip to Ahmedabad, but the vibe was markedly different on this occasion.

While Modi landed in Ahmedabad from Delhi halfan-hour before Abe’s arrival and decided to stay back at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport to welcome the visiting premier with a warm hug, it was then Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel and governor OP Kohli who received Xi on September 17, 2014.

Modi met him only after his subsequent arrival at Hotel Hyatt.

Xi’s drive to the hotel had been without much fanfare, unlike Wednesday’s cultural show where Modi, Abe and Japanese first lady Akie abandoned their bulletproof cars for an open vehicle and covered the eight-kilometre stretch to Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram amid music and folk dances.

Even the photographs that emerged from the ashram, a place that both Abe and Xi visited, were taken from different angles on Wednesday.

While Modi and Xi had tried their hands at the charkha three years ago, there was no repeat performance this time around. Sources said the Prime Minister showed Abe the charkha kept inside the Hriday Kunj, Gandhi’s room, but the two did not spin it.

The break-out areas picked by the two leaders to converse at the ashram were also different from those used on the previous occasion.

While Modi shared some lighter moments with Xi sitting on the Hriday Kunj porch, he and Abe settled for a garden in the backdrop of the Sabarmati riverfront to exchange pleasantries.

Abe and Akie left for the Hyatt only after the ashram visit had concluded. The Siddi Saiyyed Mosque that Modi and Abe visited on Wednesday, hadn’t figured in Xi’s sightseeing itinerary.