Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the village of Malaseri in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district to attend a celebration honouring the 1,111th birth anniversary of the local deity Devnarayan, who is worshipped by the Gujjar population nationwide on Saturday.
According to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, the Union culture ministry has also invited Rajasthan governor Kalraj Mishra in addition to the Prime Minister to the event.
The famous Devnarayan Doongri temple at Malaseri in the Asind sub-division of Bhilwara will host prayers for Modi, who would also address the crowd, according to BJP national general secretary and Rajasthan in-charge Arun Singh. “The religious visit of the Prime Minister on the 1111th programme of Lord Devnarayan will be grand, divine and historic,” said Singh.
The trip is considered important for Rajasthan, which will hold Assembly elections later this year. This will be Prime Minister Modi’s third visit to the state in the past four months. To honour the tribal chieftain Govind Guru, Modi travelled to Mangadh Dham in the Banswara area in November 2022. He addressed a public meeting in the Sirohi district in October.
Devnarayan was born in Malaseri in the tenth century and is thought to be an avatar of Lord Vishnu. The BJP is hoping to gain political leverage from Modi’s attendance at the event, local politicians claimed, despite the party’s insistence that it is a “religious” visit by the PM. The establishment of a Devnarayan corridor in the Asind subdivision, along the lines of Kashi, Ayodhya, and Ujjain, is anticipated to be announced by the PM.
Teams from the Centre conducting research and surveys have already visited the area and are examining any historical or literary evidence or religious texts related to Devnarayan. Gujjars are also widely distributed throughout Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir in addition to Rajasthan.
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, PM Modi would likely arrive at Malaseri village on Saturday around 11.30 am and stay there for about 90 minutes. Nearly 250,000 people are anticipated to attend the event.
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