Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday touched the feet of former Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and sought his blessings. Once a BJP leader, Keshubhai is from the electorally significant Patel community which holds the key to government formations in Gujarat. PM Modi is in Gujarat for a two-day visit from Monday. The two leaders were sharing stage at an event in Adalaj, and Modi’s gesture came even as many leaders lined up to greet the Prime Minister.

A video released by news agency ANI shows how Modi while accepting greetings from other leaders on the stage bowed down to touch Patel’s feet and later embraced him.

Watch video:

Known as ‘Bapa’, Keshubhai was CM from March 1995 to October 1995 and from March 1998 to October 2001. He was a senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader in the state until he resigned from BJP in 2012 to launch a new political party named ‘Gujarat Parivartan Party’ to contest the polls. However, he later returned to the BJP by merging his party with the saffron party.

As part of his visit to his home state, probably his last before elections are announced, Modi has inaugurated several projects. Modi has been invoking the Pulwama attack and subsequent air strikes in public meetings in Gujarat as well. On Monday in Ahmedabad, he indicated that last week’s air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camp in Pakistan won’t be India’s last such action against terrorism emanating from the neighbouring country.

Modi said he believed in “barging into the houses of terrorists and killing them” as he vowed to find out those responsible for terror attacks in India “even if they hide in bowels of the earth”.

He targeted the opposition for playing “vote-bank politics” and not taking steps to curb terrorism that has been hurting India for 40 years when they were in power.