Ahmedabad, 25 September 2014

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel today appealed to the people to celebrate Navratri as a festival of culture, purity and austerity to launch the campaign for hygiene and cleanliness.

Inaugurating the Vibrant Navratri-2014 Festival here, she said the campaign should not end with the festival but go on for the entire year and beyond till the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. She said that gods live where there is cleanliness. She asked the revelers to keep the Garba ground neat and clean.

Industries Minister Saurabh Patel recalled that it was the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi who took the festivals like Navratri and Makar Sankranti to a higher level in 2003, popularizing Navratri as the world’s longest festival, promoting tourism at the same time.

Those present on the occasion included Ministers Nitinbhai Patel, Bhupendrasinh Chudasma, Ramanbhai Vora, Vasuben Trivedi, Pradeepsinh Jadeja, Shankarbhai Chaudhry, and also Chief Secretary Varesh Sinha, senior Secretaries, GINFS Chairman Parimal Nathwani and others.