NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a spiritual break on Saturday to a famous Himalayan pilgrimage site in an apparent last-ditch effort to woo Hindu voters as the country’s acrimonious marathon election wound to a close.
On the eve of the seventh and final day of voting in the world’s biggest democratic exercise, Modi, 68, meditated at a holy cave wrapped in an orange robe in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
Seated on a bed and propped up by a pillow, Modi was pictured inside the cave after having walked on a red carpet to the revered Kedarnath shrine dedicated to Hindu deity Lord Shiva.
He also shared pictures that he took enroute to the shrine on Twitter where he boasts 47.3 million followers.
He had to take special permission from the national poll watchdog for the trip as election rules prohibit any campaigning 48 hours before voting, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said.
Modi, who is seeking a second term after leading his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in 2014, has pitched himself as Hindu nationalist to curry favour with the country’s majority community, which makes up around 80 percent of the 1.3 billion population.
His hectic campaign which started in March has seen him address three rallies a day on average, criss-crossing the length and breadth of the geographically diverse nation which is officially secular and home to a sizeable Muslim minority.