Nitish Kumar offers floral tributes to a portrait of Swami Vivekananda in Patna on Saturday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Jan. 12: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today exhorted the youths to take inspiration from Swami Vivekananda’s life and develop themselves to contribute to the society.

“Swamiji’s philosophy and ideas are relevant in today’s world and will remain so in future as well,” he said after paying floral tribute to a portrait of Vivekananda.

The Nitish government had expressed its inability to organise the National Youth Festival in Bihar on January 12 (Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary) this year because of floods and famine.

Sources, however, said the government had developed cold feet to host the festival because Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi used Swamiji’s name for election campaign in the western state.

Modi had named his poll campaign Vivekananda Yuva Vikas Yatra. He had kicked off his election campaign on September 11 to seek people’s support in the Assembly elections with a month-long Vivekanand Yuva Vikas Yatra.

Asked if there would be any “political repercussions” of Nitish adoring Swami Vivekananda, who was used as a “mascot” by Modi, JD(U) Bihar unit chief Basishtha Narayan Singh said: “Swamiji (Vivekananda) was not the pocket borough of any particular leader or person. He was a part of building our nation and its culture. Nitishji has utmost regard for legends in the fields of culture and spiritualism”

There were apprehensions in some quarters that Nitish might not identify himself much with Swami Vivekananda after Modi, known for his hardline Hindutva image, adopted the saint as his “idol”. But senior JD(U) leaders scotched such apprehensions.

The government had organised a programme at SK Memorial hall to commemorate the birth anniversary of Swamiji, where a host of ministers, including deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, legislators and other prominent personalities, paid homage to the spiritual leader.

Cultural programmes were organised in various schools, while rallies were taken out by different institutes and social organisations across Patna.

Former Bihar Legislative Council chairman Tarakant Jha led a rally taken out by Swami Vivekanand Sardh Shati Samaroh Samiti from Miller School. The main attraction of the rally was the 150 youths who dressed as Swami Vivekananda. Ministers like Nand Kishore Yadav, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Sukhada Pandey welcomed the rally at different places.