PM starts week with Rs 28 veg thali, salad at canteen

Canteen officials said he headed for a table where a few MPs from Gujarat were seated. “They immediately got up and greeted the PM. One MP asked him to join them and try the food,” an official of the Northern Railways catering staff said.

A waiter asked the PM if he would like some soup, but Modi asked for lunch instead. Within minutes, he was served a vegetarian thali that had saag made of bathua, paalak and sarson, aloo rajma, dal malka masoor, curd, rice and four chapatis. “He took one chapati and returned the rest. He seemed to prefer rice,” a staff member said.

After the meal, the PM was served fruit salad as sweet dish, but he didn’t have much of it. He then asked for the bill. “His bill was Rs 28 — Rs 18 for the veg thali and Rs 10 for the fruit salad. He gave a Rs 100 note, took the Rs 72 change and was about to leave when we took the visitors’ book to him, requesting him to comment,” a staffer said. “Annadaata sukhi bhavah (Let the provider of food prosper),” the PM wrote and then signed it before leaving.

“The SPG personnel told us nothing special was required to be done and that he should be attended to like other MPs,” an official said.

“As is standard operating procedure, the security personnel accompanying the PM tasted the food before it was served to him. They also took samples of all that was served to him — which is also the standard drill,” a senior catering official said, adding that these samples would be preserved for 72 hours during which they would be sent for testing.

“I have been working here since 1980. I have never seen a serving PM come to this canteen as a customer,” an official said. Another staff member said he was impressed by the fact that the PM did not ask for bottled water, but had the normal RO-purified water.