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

CNN —

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.”

“God doesn’t reveal his cards. He just keeps making me do things,” he continued.

The Vivekananda Rock Memorial was built in 1970 in honour of Swami Vivekananda, who is said to have attained enlightenment on the rock.

India is constitutionally bound to secularism, but since assuming power in 2014 Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have promoted a strident brand of Hindu nationalism that has deepened religious divides.

When he first contested national elections a decade ago, Modi chose India’s spiritual capital Varanasi as his constituency, making the ancient city the perfect backdrop to meld his religious