As mercury soars, NaMo tea stalls sell fruit juice

BJP estimates 3 lakh visitors for Modi meeting in city

A busy tea shop in front of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) head office in Bhubaneswar today started selling fruit juice and fruit salads, skidding off its tea politics campaign as temperatures rose in the city from 32 degree Celsius to 37 degree in just three days.

Passers by and onlookers gave a curious look at the stall and many came forward to have a taste of NaMo juice that is sold at Rs 10 per glass, half of the market rate here.

"We started offering fruit juice and salads from today keeping in view scorching heat. So far, we have made around Rs 1000 in a day," said Abhaya Behera, the shopkeeper of the NaMo stall.

In order to attract the crowd, the party had started three tea stalls in the city. It even started offering tea cups for free, but as mercury soared, the party had to change its strategy ahead of Narendra Modi’s visit."So far, about 30,000 persons have registered online to come and listen to Modiji. We are estimating nearly 3 lakh visitors for February 11 meeting," said Sajjan Sharma, a senior leader of BJP in the state. The party’s prime ministerial candidate Modi will address a public gathering at Bhubaneswar tomorrow.

BJP has a launched a dedicated website (modiinodisha.in) for registration of volunteers and participants. However, unlike its Hyderabad and Kolkata rally, there is no monetary contribution attached with the participation form.  

“The BJP will observe Modi for PM fund raising week from February 11 to 18. The Modi’s visit will mark the national launch of One Note, One Vote campaign too,” said party leader Chandan Mitra at a press conference here.

Though the presence of the saffron party in Odisha is next to regional outfit Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Congress, BJP leaders said, the Modi visit will be a grand success given the enthusiasm of party workers and common man to see and hear Modi. “This will be a historical event for Odisha BJP as we have never organised a meeting like this before. Apart from party workers, there is a lot of enthusiasm among common man,” said Ashok Sahu, another senior BJP leader.  

The party sources said, it will sell Modi merchandises (caps, T-shirt, diaries, masks) among volunteers to raise some fund. However, as of now these items are provided for free to party workers for the meeting.