Tricolour script bombs at Modi fast show as white plays truant

Women dressed in green synthetic sarees, their heads covered, streamed into the SRP grounds filing past Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who waved to them with his left hand as he shook his right hand with other visitors on the dais.

Another bunch of women with steel pots on their heads followed, waving at Modi, who returned their waves. There were 25,000-odd such women from the dairy co-operatives of the Panchmahals district, the anchor kept repeating. Panchmahals dairy is headed by BJP MLA and local strongman Jethabhai Bharwad, who had brought these women, in green.

Although Muslims were too few in the Sadbhavana crowd in this town known for the train carnage of 2002, green was the dominant colour in the crowd peppered with saffron, both colours combining to make up the flag of the BJP.

When contacted, Bharwad told The Indian Express, “I brought 31,000 women with green sarees from my dairy and constituency of Shehra. The idea was to create the Tricolour, but while my women reached, those wearing saffron and white could not be co-ordinated, so it did not work out.”

Godhra’s population is said to comprise 70 per cent Muslims, of which majority are Ghanchis, but the only Muslims seen prominently at Modi’s fast venue were Dawoodi Bohras, a small community of 6,000 in Godhra, who have always been cordial with Modi.

Visitors came with all kinds of gifts, from turbans to swords, bows and arrows and even a suitcase, for the chief minister sitting on his 23rd fast for peace and harmony.

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