10,000 Indo-Canadians Throng Narendra Modi's 'Rockstar' Show

By siliconindia | Thursday, 16 April 2015, 10:12 Hrs

TORONTO: Just as the organizers had advertised, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public interaction with the Indian diaspora at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto had all the trappings of a rockstar concert as Bollywood singer Sukhwinder Singh, Shiamak Davar troupe and other groups set the tone for the evening.

The nearly 10,000-strong audience interrupted Modi repeatedly during his hour-long speech with shouts of "Modi, Modi..." as the prime minister spoke about the changes sweeping India.

Speaking in Hindi in the presence of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet colleagues, Modi repeatedly stressed, "Sarkar naahi badli, jan manas badla hai dus mahine main (It is not that the government has changed, but it's people's thinking that has changed during the last 10 months)".

In the new atmosphere, Modi said, people were responding with enthusiasm to new ideas whether it was his Clean India Mission, or bank accounts for the poor or gas subsidy.

Modi said celebrities joined the Clean India Mission on their own, poor people deposited 14,000 crore in their newly opened accounts and rich people are giving up their gas subsidy so that the poor can be helped. "Modi has done nothing...it is the common man in India who has changed," the prime minister said.