A party for the PM: Tricolour hoisting and Ayushman Mela this year, vaccine doses to cheetahs earlier, birthdays for Modi

Apart from programmes at the Central government level, BJP state units have also lined up events for September 17. The Tripura BJP will mark the day as “Namo Vikas Utsav” and organise programmes such as yoga sessions, donation drives, and distribution of the Bhagavad Gita.

The BJP had celebrated the PM’s birthday with much enthusiasm last year too, carrying out events and outreach initiatives for a fortnight leading up to September 17. The PM himself was in Kuno, Madhya Pradesh, to release cheetahs — which had been brought in from Namibia seven decades after they became extinct in India — into the National Park there, in a highly-publicised event. The programme has run into some teething troubles, with six of these adult cheetahs and three cubs born to them in India dying of various reasons since March this year.

Since Modi came to power in 2014, the BJP has been organising outreach programmes centred around the Modi government’s big moves that specific year, whether it is Swachh Bharat, or the abrogation of Article 370, on September 17.

The year 2021 marked Modi’s uninterrupted “20 years’ run in public office (starting with his time as Gujarat Chief Minister) and the celebration was suitably ramped up. Across three weeks, events held included the distribution of 14 crore ration bags with Modi’s photo, five crore “Thank-you Modiji” postcards mailed from booths nationwide, and 71 spots where river clean-ups were held.

This was right after the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India and coinciding with the PM’s birthday, over two crore Covid-19 vaccine doses were also administered to beneficiaries.

That year, the Ministry of Culture also set up an e-auction of gifts and mementos received by the PM. On the block were as many as 1,300 items, which included the javelin thrown by Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra, which he had presented to the PM, sports gear and equipment of other medal-winning Olympians and Paralympians, a replica of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir presented to the PM by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and a wooden replica of the Chardham presented by Uttarakhand Tourism Minister Satpal Maharaj.

In previous years, the BJP organised Seva Saptah weeks and events leading up to September 17. In 2020, on Modi’s 70th birthday, blood donation camps, meetings, food distribution were held at 70 different places.

In 2019, following a meeting with his mother Hiraben in Gujarat, the PM went to the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat and addressed a public rally in Kevadia. This was just a month after the abrogation of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and the topic figured prominently in his speech.

Incidentally that year, a circular was issued by the Ahmedabad District Education department asking government, grant-in-aid and self-financed secondary and higher secondary schools to arrange special lectures, debate, essay and elocution competition, group discussions and other similar contests on the subject of Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution during the school assembly on the PM’s birthday.

In 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi and interacted with students.

In 2017, to mark the day, the BJP observed ‘Seva Diwas’ across the country with party leaders attending medical camps, blood donation events, and taking part in cleanliness drives.

Similarly in 2016, blood donation camps, cleanliness drives and charity events were organised. In Delhi, then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu cut a 500 kg laddoo at an event organised by Sulabh International to mark the Prime Minister’s birthday. Addressing the event from the stage adorned by posters with the slogan, “Toilet first, temple later”, Prabhu spoke on the need for sanitation. He said Modi is the first Prime Minister who understood the value of cleanliness.

For his 65th birthday in 2015, over a year after the Swachh Bharat campaign was rolled out, cleanliness was the focus. Gujarat government offices and civic bodies observed “Swachhata Divas”.

In 2014, the year he assumed office, the PM had again visited his mother on his birthday. That year, he asked party workers to not celebrate the day and contribute to relief efforts in Jammu and Kashmir as it was hit by floods.