Gujarat confidential: Beard Fact

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday gave away the reason behind his sporting a beard from his early years early on despite even being punished for it regularly in college. At an event of the Kadva Patidar community in Ahmedabad, Shah recalled how ‘Natubhai Sir’, his NCC instructor at Gujarat College, a strict disciplinarian, would make him run “four rounds of the ground while holding a rifle with raised hands… because I was not shaving my beard”.

“Soon, realising that Natubhai Sir was not going to have any mercy, I started coming early for the NCC parade to do the four rounds first,” Shah said. He further recalled how when one ‘Gill Sir’ asked him why he was not shaving his beard despite knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to keep it as he was not Sikh, he replied: “It would mean wasting 20 minutes every day”.

Support Acknowledged

In his address to the Brihad Karobari (extended executive meeting) of BJP at Sarangpur on July 5, Gujarat party chief and Union Water Resources Minister C R Paatil said that in the Lok Sabha polls, the Kshatriya community had voted for BJP while reposing faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi despite their “displeasure”.

Quoting Paatil, a BJP statement said: “In the last Lok Sabha 2024 elections, the Kshatriya community was not happy. Many leaders including me had apologised too… the nationalist Kshatriya community reposed its faith in PM Modi and voted for BJP”.