With eye on Goa, Arvind Kejriwal to visit Vatican City September 4

In his first foreign trip, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will be visiting Vatican City to attend Mother Teresa’s sainthood ceremony on September 4. Mr Kejriwal will be joined by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who had earlier agreed to be present at the ceremony.

Mother Teresa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will be declared a saint by Pope Francis. She was beatified in 2003, considered the first step to sainthood.

In March, Pope Francis announced that Mother Teresa would be canonized as a saint on September 4, on the eve of her 19th death anniversary. She died in 1997 at the age of 87.

Mr Kejriwal’s move to accept the invitation to attend the ceremony was also being viewed as political. The AAP spin doctors believe that his attending the ceremony will also boost AAP’s electoral prospects in Goa, which has a significant Catholic population of nearly 30 per cent.

During his Goa tour, Mr Kejriwal had declared his party will win 35 of the 40 seats in Goa. It may be recalled that Mr Kejriwal was trolled online for adorning “copel” during his recent visit to a fishing community in Goa.

According to local media reports, AAP leader in Goa, Custodio Dsouza had said that since it was the ongoing Sao Joao festival, they decided to adorn Mr Kejriwal with “copel”, which consisted of variety of fresh flowers picked during the season.