Gujarati NRI bids Rs 1.11 crore for Modi's controversial bandhgala suit

The suit that created waves and kicked up a political storm will be auctioned along with 455 items that Modi had received as gifts

A Gujarati non-resident Indian (NRI) on Wednesday bid Rs 1.11 crore in an auction today for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial pinstripe monogrammed bandhgala suit that he wore during US President Barack Obama's visit to India last month.

Viral Chowksi made the offer at a three-day auction which commenced today to sell gifts Modi has received since taking office. The final bid for the suit has not yet been disclosed.

The proceeds of the auction, being held at the Science Convention Centre in Surat, will be donated to the Clean Ganga programme. 

Another businessman, Suresh Aggarwal, earlier bid Rs 1 crore for the suit. "I have offered Rs 1 crore. This is work of charity and when the Prime Minister is doing for a great cause like cleaning of Ganga, I decided to go ahead and buy the suit," he said.

Another bidder, Raju Aggarwal, offered Rs 51 lakh for the suit, saying it was for a noble cause.

The suit that kicked up a political storm will be auctioned along with 455 items that Modi had received as gifts during his nearly nine-month long tenure to generate funds for the Prime Minister's ambitious 'Clean Ganga Mission'.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi's suit, that he wore during his meeting with President Barack Obama last month, along with other 455 items that he received as gifts during his tenure as Prime Minister will be auctioned at a three-day event in Surat," Surat Municipal Commissioner Milind Toravane said earlier.

"The gift items belonging to Prime Minister Modi is a national treasure and the money generated from the auction will be utilised for the 'Clean Ganga Mission', he added. No base price has been fixed for any of the items that will go under the hammer, Toravane said.

During his chief ministerial tenure in Gujarat, Modi had started auctioning gifts he received every year, and would donate the proceeds to Kanya Kelavani Yojna for girl child education, Toravane said.

Modi was photographed wearing the suit during his summit talks with Obama in Hyderabad House in Delhi on January 25 and at a joint media appearance that followed the meeting.

On closer inspection, photographs showed that the stripes were actually a monogram -- Narendra Damodardas Modi -- and embroidered on the fabric vertically down the stripe.

The suit had triggered a national debate while the Prime Minister was slammed by his political opponents -- especially the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party -- for wearing an expensive suit that was alleged to have cost Rs 10 lakh. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had raised the issue of Modi's expensive suit during the campaign for Delhi assembly polls in which the BJP - and the Congress - was routed. In the same context, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had called Modi a "megalomaniac".