MODI EXPRESS,
Thousands of ecstatic supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi gathered at Sydney’s Allphones Arena, dancing and singing and chanting “Modi, Modi” as they waited to hear his address.
The so-called “Modi Express” saw more than 200 supporters board a train from Melbourne for the 12-hour journey to Sydney, singing and dancing in the carriages ahead of the event at a sta- dium in the city’s Olympic Park on Monday evening.
“After a long, long time, such a phenomenon, such an excitement, such a wave has come, which is unparallelled,” one of Modi’s supporters on the train, Rakesh Raizada, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“He is our most charismatic leader and he is going to take our country to the next generation,” Sushil Chaddha, an IT consultant who has lived in Australia for three decades, told AFP.
Beside Chaddha stood doz- ens of people wearing “Modi in Australia” T-shirts printed with the Indian leader’s face in the style of Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” 2008 election posters.
Modi, who won India’s widest electoral victory in three decades, was greeted like a rock star in New York in September at an address, which Sydney hopes to emulate.
More than 20,000 people mostly from the Indian diaspora in Australia packed the stadium, although some travelled from as far as the United States, Singapore and New Zealand.