Lottery to decide participants at Modi’s public reception

A lottery system would decide the participants who would get to attend the public reception of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 28 at the prestigious Madison Square Garden in New York City, organisers of the event have said.

The Indian-American Community Foundation, set up recently for the purpose, till Monday midnight had received some 20,000 applications from people across the country – from as far as remote parts of Alaska and Hawaii.

Monday was the deadline for online applications for members of the 407 Indian-American community organisations and religious institutions, who have joined hands to host Mr. Modi’s public reception.

On Tuesday, the Foundation opened the process for inviting online applications from the general public for the event.

September 7 is the last day for online application for general admission, during which organisers are expecting several thousands to register for the event.

“A random number lottery will be conducted to assign tickets to everyone registered,” the website said as it opened up the general registration process.

“I was not there when Swami Vivekananda spoke in Chicago in 1893. I do not want to miss when another Narendra is about to deliver a historic speech in New York,” said Anju Preet, a scientist from Georgetown University.

Madison Square Garden has the seating capacity of not more than 20,000. Tickets for the programme are free.