On a busy Thursday morning, ahead of launching a massive cleanliness campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stop at a police station in the heart of the Capital to give it a ‘rubdown’. There were no officers present at the Mandir Marg police station as all of them had been deputed for the PM’s visit to the area. Noticing the filth in the parking area, Modi cleaned the police station and told the policemen present that cleanliness was important.
After paying tributes at the memorials of Mahatma Gandhi and former Prime Minister lal Bahadur Shastri on their birth anniversaries, Modi was on his way to Valmiki Basti, a colony of sanitation workers, when he asked his cavalcade to stop by the police station. As the Prime Minister walked in, police personnel at the station and those accompanying him were taken by surprise. Most of the personnel had been deputed for security arrangements for the ‘Clean India’ inauguration event at Rajpath. Even though the Prime Minister’s POA made no mention of his visit to the police station, it was a welcome sight for the men in uniform to see the PM in their midst.
The Prime Minister spent around 15 minutes at the police station and vetted its premises. “He asked us to improve the general upkeep at the police station with special emphasis to keeping the station clean and green. He said he would drop by later,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) SBS Tyagi.
Modi then reached Valmiki Basti where he swept a pavement before the formal launch of the ‘Clean India’ drive at Rajpath.
After the event, Modi tweeted, “Today I joined the Clean India Campaign at Mandir Marg Police Station in Delhi”. He also tweeted two pictures, the first showed him cleaning the police station premises with a broom captioned — ‘Why Clean India’ picture. The second picture showed the area completely clean with the caption —‘My Clean India’ picture #MyCleanIndia.