A big visit full of ‘chhoti chhoti baatein’

VARANASI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day Varanasi visit that began with a wave and ended with a spade was all about getting ‘chhoti chhoti baatein’ (the small things) right.

For instance, his expert handling of the spade on the Assi ghat surprised even the foreigners who looked wide eyed at how the PM was cutting mounds of dirt on the Ganga bank. Even the party lead- ers thought so.

“I was astonished to see Modiji expertly balancing the tray on which the dirt was to be collected on one leg even as he continued to cut through dirty stubborn soil mounds with his spade along with the labourers,” said UP BJP secretary Virendra Tiwari who was present there.

Durga Devi, the gram pradhan of Jayapur village from where the PM launched the model village scheme on Friday, said, “It’s yet to sink in that that while I was delivering the welcome speech, the PM had himself got up to adjust the mike so that I could be widely heard. We are grateful that he chose to deliver a powerful message from our village that we should first aim to get the small things right.”

At this village, the PM had said, “I want to do big tasks by focusing on small things.”

This aspect of his was evident right through his visit. During the launch of the Trade Facilitation Centre and Crafts Museum, he noticed that since all air vents were curtained - apparently for security reasons and the atmosphere inside the venue was suffocating. He asked the security personnel to draw back the curtains. At the DLW ground, Modi had noticed that photo journalists jostling for the elusive right frame of his were blocking the view of the party workers. “He immediately told us that if we had got the focus right, we should step aside as the audience was getting disturbed,” a photojournalist said.