Ahmedabad:
Weighing your leader in gold and silver is passé. How innovative can your welcome be after Mayawati's money garland caught the eye of everyone in the country?
A silver chair for Haryana Chief Minister Bhupendra Singh Hooda. A gun salute for BJP general secretary Narendra Singh Tomar. Now try this. The new state BJP chief in Gujarat, RC Faldu, was weighed in blood, 75 litres of it for his 75 kg of body weight. All that blood has been kept in Vadodara for donation "to the needy".
The leader looked quite happy at the innovation as he sat on the giant weighing scale. For the more conventional, he was also weighed in coins.
Tomar, the BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh and general secretary, was felicitated over the weekend with followers firing gunshots in the air in Morena and a district-level office-bearer ended up injured.
Chief Minister Hooda said no to the silver throne and, it is reported, a golden crown. But then Hooda belongs to the party that is taking its austerity drive very seriously. In neighbouring UP, Chief Minister Mayawati shall soon be accepting her third garland made of money.