LUCKNOW: His white beard was well trimmed, and a sleeveless jacket was thrown over his traditional Indian blouse; Abhinandan Pathak turns his head away to an uncanny resemblance to u . S. A .’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But Pathak — almost the equal peak and build because the PM, and who even walks comparably — is no everyday doppelganger. Bitter at Modi’s “failed guarantees,” Pathak is jogging as an unbiased in opposition to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s marathon election — and is getting quite a few aids.
The biggest election on Earth wraps up on Sunday, May 19, after seven weeks of intense campaigning and the votes of 900 million Indians. “The anger (closer to Modi) is actual. I can feel it anywhere I cross,” Pathak, 58, informed AFP from his one-room shanty domestic inside the northern city of Lucknow, in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh. When Modi changed into first elected in 2014, Pathak changed into a supporter. Because he resembled the ideal, human beings “cherished me, they asked for selfies and hugged me.” “I turned into showered with love. People notion that if they cannot meet the real Modi, they could also meet me,” he said. “But now they get indignant once they see me. They ask me ‘where are the coolest days,'” he stated, after Modi’s 2014 election slogan “achhe din ayenge” (“top days will come”).
Pathak’s brightest moment got here in May 2014, when he says Modi hugged him throughout a victory parade inside the metropolis of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. But it was all downhill after that. He changed into ignored with the aid of the celebration, and his many letters to Modi went unanswered, Pathak stated. Lookalike applicants are nothing new within the colorful global of Indian politics. Their presence invariably invokes curiosity, with crowds thronging to capture a glimpse of the duplicates.
In Mumbai, another Modi lookalike — Vikas Mahanta — has been out and about on the marketing campaign path in a city district and on a BJP price ticket. The fifty seven-12 months-old businessman, who even played Modi in a touch-recognized 2017 biopic, has been the star attraction at rallies. But it may get bushy. Once human beings threw stones at him, and he had to be rushed to protection. Now the lookalike has his personal bodyguard. “Once, I changed into chased by using a gang of men around nighttime even as I was coming back from a rally,” he advised the Hindustan Times day by day in 2017.
Stepped at the accelerator, jumped all indicators, and failed to stop everywhere.”
In 2014, Prashant Sethi lapped up being a twin of Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the united states of America’s Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty and Modi’s important challenger in both the 2014 and 2019 elections. Sethi, who sells fried fowl in Surat in the western nation of Gujarat, was reportedly supplied a movie position too. But now, the Modi supporter has had enough. He has converted his appearance: setting on weight, growing a beard, and changing his hairstyle — all to appearance distinct from Gandhi. “My family and I were supporters of the BJP because of the beginning. But due to my look, I changed into always teased,” Sethi informed AFP.
