Modi heads for two days of island meditation as Indian election nears end

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on his way to meditate inside an island shrine for two days to cap weeks of election campaigning – his latest public display of religiosity days after proclaiming he was sent by god.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on his way to meditate inside an island shrine for two days to cap weeks of election campaigning – his latest public display of religiosity days after proclaiming he was sent by god. India’s election is the world’s largest, a mammoth exercise in democracy that has taken place over six weeks. The final day of voting takes place on Saturday and results will be announced three days later. Modi will visit the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, a pilgrimage site off India’s southernmost tip, from May 30 to June 1, according to Indian state broadcaster DD News. The site is where popular Hindu monk and philosopher Swami Vivekananda attained enlightenment. Modi has twice before ended an election campaign with meditation. But he has recently been making increasingly grand displays of piety, to capitalize on Hindu-nationalist sentiment as he eyes a third consecutive five-year term in power. In an interview last week with local news channel NDTV, Modi said: “I’m convinced that God has sent me for a purpose, and when that purpose is finished, my work will be done.”