If ever a suit raised eyebrows and set social media ablaze, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bandhgala pinstriped suit with his name woven into it.
Since Monday morning, when the two-piece monogrammed suit was put on auction in Surat, it has attracted a bid of ₹1.21 crore. Local textile businessman Rajesh Juneja outbid two others — who had bid no less than ₹1 crore — on the first day of the auction.
Earlier in the day, a textile merchant and an NRI businessman had quoted ₹1 crore and ₹1.11 crore respectively for the suit. Prior to that, bids had come in at ₹11 lakh and ₹51 lakh.
Modi’s now-famous suit was one of the 455 ‘gifts’ from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) being put up for auction. These include clothes, showpieces and gift items made of glass, silver, gold, wood and ceramic.
The proceeds from the auction, being conducted under the watch of the District Collector’s office, will go to an NGO in Varanasi to fund the Clean Ganga project.
All for Ganga “The proceeds from the auctioned items from PMO will go to the Namami Gange (Clean Ganga) project.
“Also, we have 361 items from the Gujarat Chief Minister's office. The proceeds from the auction of those items will go to the Mukhya Mantri Kanya Kelavani Nidhi (Girl Child Welfare Fund),” Rajendra Kumar, Surat District Collector, told BusinessLine .
The bids are being invited in written format and the final winning bid will be announced after the entire auction ends on Friday, the Collector said.
The items are on display at the Science Centre gallery in Surat for three days.
The final auction will take place on February 20.
The Prime Minister’s suit drew global attention after he wore it during his meeting with US President Barack Obama last month in New Delhi.