Leaders across all parties pay tribute to Bapu

Mumbai: Leaders cutting across party lines in Maharashtra paid glowing tributes to Mahatma Gandhi on Tuesday on the occasion of his 149th birth anniversary. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that drawing inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts and vision and walking on the path shown by him would be a real tribute to him.

Mr Fadnavis urged people to take a pledge to act on Gandhi’s principles. “From a clean mind to a clean nation, taking inspiration from Bapu’s thoughts and vision and walking on the path shown by him is a real tribute to him,” he said.

“Gandhiji taught us self-discipline, swachhata and rural development, and our government is working hard for all of this under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Father of the Nation gave the people a model for a ‘New India’ and Maharashtra is contributing ‘a lot’ by leading the cleanliness campaign,” Mr Fadnavis said. The CM Tuesday morning participated in a foot march along with other party leaders in Nagpur city.

Meanwhile, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said that there was a need to embrace Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts to cleanse the thinking of the people as they cleaned the country ahead of the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation. “We will need to stand firmly to ensure Gandhi’s thoughts remain. Tributes to Bapu,” Mr Pawar tweeted. Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan, too, paid tributes to Gandhi and tweeted his picture.

NCP state president Jayant Patil said that pronouncing Mahatma Gandhi’s name itself filled one with moral strength.