The PM visited the Chandra Shekhar Azad park and Allahabad HC during BJP's National Executive meet in the city.
"Chai achchi thi," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Harikrishna Babloo, who served him masala tea without sugar at the Allahabad High Court.
Tea was all he had, said Babloo, who was all set to attend Modi's rally, for which he had got a pass at the High Court. He says he had also served tea to UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav around a year ago and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi a couple of years ago.
It was not just the Allahabad High Court for which the Prime Minister took time off his busy schedule at the party's two-day national executive. On Monday, he visited the Company Baghdad, where revolutionary Chandra Shekhar Azad had shot himself to avoid being captured.
This was announced by BJP MP Navjot Singh Siddhu, recently-nominated to the Rajya Sabha. "The way the Prime Minister spent time alone at the park, bowed before his statue to pay respects to the freedom fighter showed that for him, feelings for the country are very important," said Siddhu, a leader from Punjab which is also heading for polls next year.
Allahabad is known for another reason-- the Nehru-Gandhi family mansion Anand Bhavan, which Modi, understandably, skipped. Anand Bhavan was constructed by Motilal Nehru in 1930s when the older house was transformed into the local headquarters of the Congress. In the past four months, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has made four trips to Allahabad. The Congress is planning to focus on Allahabad in the run up to Uttar Pradesh polls.
The links of the Nehru-Gandhi family to the city partly explains why Varun Gandhi, the BJP's Sultanpur MP and Nehru's grandson, cannot totally be ignored in Allahabad. His portraits had dominated the poster war in Allahabad.
At the national executive, it was Modi all the way. The meet focused on achievements of two years of government and recent "successes" in elections under Modi's leadership. Party leaders attributed the party's growth and government's performance to the Prime Minister's vision.
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