Nepal visit personal too, tweets PM
KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal on Sunday just got a personal touch. On Saturday, Modi wrote on his Twitter account: “On a personal note my Nepal visit is very special. Years ago I met a child from Nepal, Jeet Bahadur, who didn’t know where he was headed.” This child is now a young man of 27 years studying BBA at Rai University in Ahmedabad. Jeet had come to India in 1998 with elder brother Dasrath from his home in Nepal’s Nawalparasi district in the hope of earning a livelihood.
Jeet worked at a house in Delhi and then went to Rajasthan before deciding to go back home. However, fate had other plans for him. Getting into a wrong train, he found himself in Ahmedabad instead of Gorakhpur, and then in Modi’s home, where the Gujarat leader took care of his education, sending him to school and finally to college.
Come Sunday, the Prime Minister will travel to Nepal, where he hopes to meet Jeet’s parents and give them their son.
Narrating the anecdote on Twitter, Modi added that he would also have the “good fortune” to pray at the Pashupatinath temple. He called Nepal and India “timetested friends”, who shared a “common culture and heritage”.
“I hope to have fruitful discussions with leaders and lawmakers of Nepal that will take India-- Nepal relations to even greater heights,” the PM tweeted.
According to diplomatic sources, Modi is deeply committed to Nepal and is learnt to have once remarked that it was India’s ‘duty’ to help the northern neighbour. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP have engaged with the Himalayan country for decades.
RSS affiliates have representatives in Nepal, while the party has a dedicated Nepal cell in their Delhi headquarters. Modi aims to combine the personal, organisational, religious and political links with Nepal in his visit.