Chennai: After a three-month-long hectic campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday arrived at the scenic coastal tourist town of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to meditate at the Dhyana Mandapam inside the Swami Vivekananda Memorial in mid-sea.
Modi began his 45-hour Kanyakumari sojourn by offering prayers at the famous Sri Bhagavathi Amman Temple and took a special boat owned by the Poompuhar Shipping Corporation Limited to reach the Vivekananda Memorial. The memorial was built in 1970 around the rock on which Swami Vivekananda meditated for three days and attained enlightenment.
Before leaving to Delhi from Kanyakumari on June 1, the prime minister will visit the 133-feet stone statue of Tamil poet-saint Thiruvalluvar, located adjacent to the Vivekananda Memorial, 500 metres from the mainland.
Modi began his meditation on Thursday evening which will continue till Saturday afternoon.
In 2019 too, PM Modi had visited Kedarnath in Uttarakhand after the end of campaigning to meditate for the well-being of countrymen.
The tourist town, the geographical end of the Indian mainland, has been brought under a thick blanket of security due to the prime minister’s visit. All tourist spots in the town have been made off-bounds for the public, while the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu and Congress have taken objection to Modi’s visit, calling it a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
This also marks Modi’s return to Tamil Nadu, a state he visited over a dozen times since the beginning of 2024 where his party, BJP, making a concerted effort to win over the confidence of Tamils.
The PM’s meditation comes just before the voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls concludes on June 1. Though the BJP says the meditation isn’t a “political event”, his visit to Kanyakumari and Swami Vivekananda memorial is significant for more reasons than one.
The visit is aimed at sending a message to voters in West Bengal, where Swami Vivekananda is revered, and elsewhere and project Modi as a leader who always thinks about the people of the country.
The Dhyan Mandapam at the Vivekananda Memorial is the same place where the late Swami Vivekananda meditated. Kanyakumari is also the place where the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean confluence, known as Triveni Sangamam.
As Modi’s Kanyakumari visit makes news, social media abuzz with pictures of the prime minister at the Vivekananda Memorial in Kanyakumari taken in 1991 during the Ekta Yatra undertaken by BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi from Kanyakumari to Srinagar.