After filing his nomination, Dr Raman Singh touched Yogi Adityanath's feet twice
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh filed papers today to contest next month's state election with his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath by his side. Raman Singh, 66, then touched the feet of Adityanath, 20 years his junior.
Even in political experience, the three-time Chhattisgarh chief minister has several years on Yogi Adityanath. He joined the BJP's precursor Bharatiya Jan Sangh when he was a student in the early 1970s and became the president of its youth wing in 1976-77. Yogi Adityanath was born in 1972.
Raman Singh is the fourth longest-serving chief minister in India who is still in office, after Pawan Kumar Chamling of Sikkim, Pu Lalthanhawla of Mizoram and Odisha's Naveen Patnaik.
Yogi Adityanath, 46, has completed a little over one-and-a-half years as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
As head priest of the Gorakhnath temple, the saffron-robed Chief Minister is used to people far senior deferring to him.
During the swearing-in ceremony of President Ram Nath Kovind, a number of BJP leaders were reported to have touched his feet. A picture of Mr Kovind bowing before Yogi Adityanath had also surfaced.
The two chief ministers also addressed a rally in Rajnandgaon, the constituency where Raman Singh plans to contest. He won the seat in 2008 and 2013. His main rival will be Congress candidate Karuna Shukla, the niece of BJP patriarch and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who died in August.
Rajnandgaon will vote along with 17 other constituencies in the first phase of polling in Chhattisgarh on November 12. The remaining 72 seats in the state will vote on November 20. The results will be declared on December 11 along with the other states where polls will be held - Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana.