Narendra Modi, on his 63rd birthday, meets former Gujarat Chief Minister and rival Keshubhai Patel at his residence
, 63 today, has not been known to make much of his birthday. But he has not been presumptive prime minister before either.
Four days after the BJP announced that Mr Modi will be its candidate for PM for the 2014 general elections, the Gujarat Chief Minister is doing the rounds of Ahmedabad collecting blessings and good wishes. And using the occasion for a spot of political consolidation.
While his party organises a recruitment drive with special emphasis on inducting one lakh Muslim youth, Mr Modi is headed to the residence of Keshubhai Patel, who had rebelled against him and quit the BJP to float his own party before Assembly elections last year.
Mr Patel suffered a washout in the elections, which Mr Modi won convincingly, but the veteran leader has enormous clout in the powerful Patel community in Gujarat and still holds sway in many parts of the Saurashtra region. As Mr Modi makes a bid to be Prime Minister next year, he needs to win friends and influence people.
In that effort, he is also attempting to turn a debate over his secular credentials on its head. He is accused by political rivals of being a divisive leader, but his party insists that Mr Modi enjoys support among minorities too. Today's recruitment plan aims to demonstrate that.
At a massive rally in Jaipur last week, Muslims were requested by the BJP to attend wearing
burqas and skull caps.
Then, on Sunday, Mr Modi said at a rally of ex-serviceman in Haryana that politicians should learn a lesson in secularism from the Indian armed forces. He said, "I would like to tell the politicians who want to divide India into small groups... there is no bigger example of secularism than the armed forces."
The Gujarat Chief Minister is accused of not doing enough to stop the communal riots that mangled his state in 2002, leaving hundreds of people, mostly Muslims, dead. Those accusations have not been proved in court.
This morning, Mr Modi, dressed in a golden
kurta, began his day with a visit to the home of his 95-year-old mother Hira Ba. He also accepted flowers from the crowds gathered to meet him and said, "I came for my mother's blessings. There is no bigger privilege than that."