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Jashodaben plays hide and seek

It is not a coincidence that Narendra Modi’s estranged wife Jashodaben is now not traceable soon after it came to light on Thursday that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate acknowledged her as his spouse while filing his nomination in Vadodara for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on Wednesday.

The 62-year-old retired teacher played the vanishing trick soon after watching the television news on Thursday morning about Modi naming her as his wife in the relevant affidavit he submitted in the collector’s office. But her family members based in Unjha in north Gujarat say that she had left on a pilgrimage to four sacred places of Hindus in India — Dwarka, Badrinath, Puri and Rameswaram — to pray for Modi’s success.

According to Modi’s Ahmedabad-based younger brother Prahlad, Jashodaben (62), who was married to 18-year-old Modi in 1968 when she was 17, is hopeful that one day he will seek her forgiveness and take her home. When Modi was not declared the BJP’s PM nominee, the deeply religious woman, who retired as a primary school teacher in 2010, remained bare-footed for four months till the saffron party named him as its candidate for the most powerful political post. While she is on a pilgrimage, she has taken a religious vow that she will not drink her favourite tea and will not eat rice till Modi becomes the prime minister.

“Her prayers have been answered as Narendrabhai has publicly accepted her as his wife. She prays for his success every day and we all pray for him to become PM,” says her brother Kamlesh who is in touch with Prahlad, owner of a rationed grains shop in Ahmedabad.

Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela, who was a close friend of the BJP strongman in 1970s, told Khaleej Times that Modi never enjoyed a married life and before deserting his wife and turning a full-time RSS pracharak, he had advised her to continue her studies.

mahesh@khaleejtimes.com