T-shirts depicting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as Lord Krishna surfaced at several places in Surat on the occasion of Janmashtami on Tuesday.The T-shirts, with coloured pictures of Modi, were distributed by the Surat City Govinda Utsav Samiti, a body comprising 65 'mandalis' that is organising programmes to celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna.Samiti President C R Patil said, "These T-shirts were supplied to us by a city-based firm engaged in the dyeing business that wished to highlight the good work of the Chief Minister, particularly for Surat, in the past several years.”"The firm sponsored all the 11,000 T-shirts and asked us to keep its name confidential," said Patil, a BJP leader. "These T-shirts have been distributed to all the 65 mandalis under the Samiti."Samiti Vice-President Ganesh Sawant said, "The Samiti agreed to this idea because we did not see anything wrong in it."Youths would wear the T-shirts for 'Matki phod' programmes.According to Sawant, the firm initially supplied 9,000 T-shirts and when the demand for them increased, it printed 2,000 more."These T-shirts are a big hit, especially among children," he said.
