India (Commonwealth Union)_ Heeraben, the mother of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed away in Ahmedabad in the early hours of Friday. She was 99 years old. The Prime Minister posted a touching tribute, revealing the public of his mother’s passing. He wrote, “A glorious century rests at the feet of God… In Maa, I have always felt that trinity, which contains the journey of an ascetic, the symbol of a selfless Karmayogi and a life committed to values”.
The statement from the UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre in Ahmedabad, where Heeraben had been admitted since Wednesday, stated, “Smt Hiraba Modi passed away on 30/12/2022, at 3:39 am (early morning, during the treatment at UN Mehta Heart Hospital”. Soon after the news, PM Modi rushed to Gandhinagar to perform the final rites of his beloved mother. He was slated to visit West Bengal to inaugurate a series of projects. The Prime Minister’s Office or PMO tweeted that he will participate through video conference in today’s scheduled events in Bengal.
According to the PMO’s tweet, “PM @narendramodi will join today’s scheduled programmes in West Bengal via video conferencing. These programmes include the launch of key connectivity related projects and the meeting of the National Ganga Council”. Modi paid his last tribute to his mother at her Gandhinagar residence. During the final rites, the 72-year-old Prime Minister was observed carrying his mother’s coffin on his shoulders. The corpse was subsequently placed in an ambulance, and the prime minister also climbed in. Heeraben’s body was then brought to the crematorium for the rituals and cremated in Gandhinagar.
Political leaders and world leaders expressed their condolences to PM Modi and his family. President Droupadi Murmu, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Gujarat Chief Minister Rajnath Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharje, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Karnataka BJP leader BS Yediyurappa, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, and many other leaders condoled the PM’s mother’s death.
Tributes poured in from across the world for PM Modi’s mother. World leaders also expressed their condolences to PM Modi and his family. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was the first leader to offer condolences. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Singapore’s High Commissioner to India Simon Wong, Former Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Russian Ambassador to India Denis Alipov, German Ambassador to India Philipp Ackermann, and other leaders and diplomats paid tributes to Modi’s mother Heeraben.
Heeraben resided with Pankaj Modi, PM Modi’s younger brother, in Raysan village close to Gandhinagar. Whenever the Prime Minister visits Gujarat, he would visit Raysan and spend time with his beloved mother. When PM Modi’s mother turned 99 in June 2022, he published a blog post wishing her 99th birthday. In his blog, the Prime Minister described how his mother helped him shape his thought, attitude, and self-confidence. The Prime Minister also wrote that his mother’s childhood was far more traumatic than his own, and that the loss of her mother at a young age continued to cause her pain throughout her life.
The prime minister also recalled the early days of his family’s adversity in his blog. He added that his mother used to wash vessels at a few houses to assist with family expenditures. She would also spin the charkha in order to boost her little income. Highlighting his mother’s focus on cleanliness, he said that she was very keen that the bed be clean and well made. The PM also shared memories of precious moments with his mother, saying that she feeds him sweets whenever he visits her and wipes his face like a doting mother.
