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To mobilise crowd, Modi goes Team Anna way
By A correspondent
September 16, 2011 02:14 IST

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is all set to copy anti-corruption crusaders Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal's strategy to mobilise crowd to make his proposed fast for 'sadbhavna' a super success.

Following Anna Hazare's stunning success, Modi will be fasting from 17 September to 19 September.

It seems Modi has Anna on his mind. He is also following some methods of Team Anna to mobilise and excite the crowd. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party has contacted all Gujarati television channels to flash a telephone number: 022-61550770. Modi's publicity managers are asking viewers to give a miss call to the above number to show support for Modi.

Hazare had similarly motivated around two crore people in India by urging them to give a miss call to express their solidarity with his cause -- to press for a stronger Lokpal Bill.

Meanwhile, the Congress has also announced the plan to start a counter-fast while copying Modi's fast. In this season of fasts, common men in Gujarat have got a talking point.

'Sadbhavana' -- Modi's idea of fast for goodwill -- is not exactly understandable to the common men in Gujarat who have forgotten communal hard feelings of 2002 that had arose after the train burning incident at Godhra.

On Wednesday, the clerks in Modi's office were asking a Gujarati journalist, "Saheb attham kem karvana che? (Why is the boss fasting for three days?)

Attham is the word used by Gujarati Jains when they fast without food for three consecutive days.

Modi has started mobilising the crowd, the way Team Anna did. Many Vohra community leaders have, already, committed that they would be attending his fast.

Local TV channels in Gujarat are provoking people to join the event of fasting of Modi at Gujarat University's luxurious conventional hall, which has the capacity to accommodate more than 15,000 people.

It's reported that BJP has also instructed their MLAs to bring people from their respective constituencies.

A correspondent
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