Pritam Kaur at the gurdwara on Thursday. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)

A prayer and a plea from the Prime Minister’s sister pepped up the Congress in ward 85 on the penultimate day of the civic poll campaign.

Sources said Pritam Kaur, the younger of Manmohan Singh’s two Calcutta-based sisters, had intended her visit to a 102-year-old gurdwara on Thursday morning to pray for “family friend” — and Congress candidate from ward 85 — Tulsi Das Mukherjee to be a low-key one.

But that wasn’t to be. Photographers and TV crew invited by party supporters followed the 63-year-old and husband Vidyyarattan Singh till the entrance of the Panditiya Place gurdwara, where they stayed for around an hour.

“She prayed for the party’s success, which was a tremendous morale-booster for us. After all, she is the Prime Minister’s sister,” said Babusona Deashi, a Congress worker.

Gurmeet Singh, a member of the executive committee of Sri Guru Singh Sabha’s Gurdwara Garcha Sikh Sangat, said Pritam Kaur participated in the rituals and listened to kirtan for 15 minutes.

Homemaker Mita Kaur, 30, was impressed by Pritam Kaur’s simplicity. “She had no airs about her. She spoke to the ladies as if she were one of them,” said Kaur, a resident of the ward that includes parts of Panditya Road, Rashbehari Avenue and Lansdowne.

Vidyyarattan Singh later said that he and his wife — residents of Behala — wouldn’t like the visit to be politicised. “We have known Tulsi for a long time, so we agreed to go to the gurdwara with him and pray,” he told Metro.