Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's blue pinstriped suit with his name etched on it went under the hammer for Rs 43.1 million. He wore the suit during US President Barack Obama’s visit to India last month.
Bids went as high as Rs 5 million but were rejected as they came in two minutes after the auction closed at 5 pm, said District Collector Rajendra Kumar.
Ending the three-day scramble for the controversial suit that had the prime minister’s full name, Narendra Damodardas Modi, woven into the fabric as stripes, Laljibhai Patel, a diamond merchant in Surat, placed the winning bid. Patel told the media that he would put the suit on display in his factory and had paid such a hefty sum for “a social cause”. The proceeds from the auction of the suit, along with 455 other items belonging to the prime minister, will go to one of his pet projects, the Clean Ganga Mission. Patel runs a diamond polishing firm, Dharmanandan Diamonds. Starting as a small partnership firm in 1985, the firm has grown to employ 3,800 skilled workers now and exports diamonds.
Modi used to auction his possessions when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, too, to raise funds for welfare schemes. Those, however, were relatively low-profile events, cumulatively fetching a little over Rs 900 million.
The prime minister was criticised for wearing the allegedly Rs 1000,000 suit, in contrast to the humble “chaiwala” (tea vendor) image he had projected during the Lok Sabha polls that brought him to power last year.
Bidding for the pinstripe bandhgala suit started on Wednesday last, with the first bid for Rs 1100,000. Not just wealthy diamond merchants and local traders, but even two children, Vedant (seven) and Siddhant Karnavat (13) bid for the suit with their pocket money. The bidding intensified on Thursday when a Surat-based diamond trader offered Rs 14.8 million and left behind a Bhavnagar businessman who bid Rs 14.1 million.
