BJP chief gets grand welcome

A day after being anointed as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president, it was a homecoming for Nitin Gadkari who returned to his hometown in Nagpur on Sunday, reports Pradip Kumar Maitra.

A day after being anointed as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president, it was a homecoming for Nitin Gadkari who returned to his hometown in Nagpur on Sunday.

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A throng of BJP leaders and workers from the state converged at the Nagpur airport to welcome him. Gadkari, who arrived from the capital in the morning, was virtually deluged with flowers, bouquets and garlands as people jostled against one other to get closer to him.

At the airport itself, Gadkari stopped by and garlanded the statue of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. As Gadkari made his way out of the street outside the airport, he was virtually welcomed by a fragrant shower of rose petals.

Plodding through the crowd, as he managed to get into his waiting car, it was only the beginning of an almost four-and-a-half-hour rally through the city to his home.

Also in attendance were a band and a bedecked stage at the side of the road with people carrying banners and posters swarming the vicinity.

It was here that he got onto an open flower-bedecked vehicle and started the rally throughout the city.

En route, men and women in saffron turbans stopped the entourage to welcome him.

At one square, a man attired as Chhatrapati Shivaji and on a horse waited to welcome him. The new BJP president waved, saluted and interacted briefly with the people. The rally culminated at his residence where arrangement had been made for him to address people.