While Modi celebrates his birthday, Opposition leaders have attacked Aashirwad ka Diya as political spectacle rather than service. Tejashwi Yadav (RJD, Leader of Opposition in Bihar) said Bihar is facing severe floods, with tens of lakhs affected, while the “double-engine” government is organising a state-backed lamp programme for the Prime Minister’s birthday.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2026: Prime Minister Narendra Modi turns 76 today, with his birthday unfolding as a carefully choreographed mix of political outreach, public-service programmes, technology ambitions and a growing Opposition challenge over the government-backed celebrations.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has launched the month-long Seva Sankalp Abhiyan, running from September 17 to October 17, to mark Modi’s 76th birthday and 25 years in public life, dating from his first tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001. The campaign includes health and blood-donation camps, cleanliness drives, plantation programmes, welfare outreach, school activities, rallies and other public-participation events.
But the most politically visible symbol of the celebrations is the “Aashirwad Ka Diya” campaign. Citizens have been encouraged to light an earthen lamp at home between roughly 6 pm and 7 pm and offer prayers for the Prime Minister’s health and long life. Government and BJP organisations in several states are preparing large-scale lamp-lighting programmes, with welfare-scheme beneficiaries also being brought into the campaign. In Gujarat alone, reports say more than 88 lakh diyas are expected to be lit at over 18,500 locations.
The BJP and state governments describe the campaign as a gesture of gratitude and public participation linked to Modi’s 25 years of public service. Haryana, for example, has officially announced the lighting of an “Aashirwad Ka Diya” in homes across the state, while Uttarakhand has planned lamp-lighting at government scheme centres, ration shops, gas distribution centres and other locations.
The Opposition, however, sees something very different in the flames.
Birthday celebrations collide with flood politics
RJD leader and Bihar Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav has attacked the lamp campaign against the backdrop of the state’s continuing flood crisis. He alleged that government resources were being directed towards birthday celebrations while flood victims needed relief, and cited an alleged expenditure of around ₹100 crore. The ₹100-crore figure is an Opposition allegation and has not been independently established in the sources reviewed.
Yadav’s broader argument is that floods, unemployment, inflation, healthcare and education should command greater political attention than a birthday celebration centred on the Prime Minister.
Congress leader Motha Rohith took aim at the campaign from another direction, arguing that young people need employment rather than appeals to light lamps. He invoked the BJP’s much-discussed employment promise of creating two crore jobs annually and said students and job seekers remained under severe economic pressure.
Criticism has also emerged over the involvement of welfare beneficiaries. In several states, government-linked campaign plans explicitly envisage participation by beneficiaries of welfare schemes. In Haryana, officials were instructed to prepare beneficiary lists and ensure participation, while Madhya Pradesh’s campaign plans similarly state that beneficiaries would participate in programmes connected to the celebrations.
The political dispute therefore goes beyond the diya itself: is the campaign a voluntary expression of public gratitude, as the BJP maintains, or does the use of government machinery and welfare networks blur the line between public service and political mobilisation, as Opposition parties allege?
From diyas to silicon
Amid the birthday politics, Modi is also scheduled to inaugurate SEMICON India 2026 at Yashobhoomi in New Delhi at around 10 am today.
The three-day semiconductor and electronics event, running from September 17 to 19, carries the theme “Silicon to Systems: Building the Ecosystem.” According to the Prime Minister’s Office, more than 600 companies and representatives from 52 countries are participating, with around 50,000 visitors expected. Six country pavilions will represent Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore and Sweden.
The event is designed to showcase the entire semiconductor value chain, from materials and chip design to fabrication, advanced packaging, electronics and finished systems. The government is positioning SEMICON India as a major platform for investment, innovation, manufacturing and international collaboration in a sector central to India’s technology ambitions.
Thus, September 17 presents two dramatically different images of India’s political moment: a nation being asked to light millions of lamps for its Prime Minister, and a nation seeking a place in the global race for the chips that will power its technological future.
For the government, both are expressions of public participation and national progress.
For the Opposition, the question is whether the spectacle of celebration is overshadowing the harder questions confronting ordinary citizens.
And beneath the glow of millions of diyas, that political argument is unlikely to disappear when the flames do.
JANPATH NEWS NETWORK (JNN)
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