• Heeraben Modi, the mother of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed away.
• Rahul Gandhi, the head of the opposition, also expressed his sympathies.
• He took office as prime minister of India in 2014.

Heeraben Modi, the mother of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, passed away in the wee hours of the morning. She was cremated.

She lived in western Gujarat state and had been admitted to the hospital there on Wednesday when her health deteriorated. She was 99 years old.

God is the recipient of a glorious century, Mr. Modi tweeted on Friday morning. He lit his mother’s funeral pyre as soon as he arrived in Gujarat in the morning.

He used video conferencing to attend ceremonies that were scheduled in the state of West Bengal after the funeral.

When there were significant holidays or festivals, the Indian prime minister frequently went to see his mother to ask for her blessing.

On June 18, the day Heeraben turned 99, Mr. Modi wrote in his blog that she had “moulded” his mind, personality, and sense of self-worth via her life and sacrifices.

“My mother is both ordinary and straightforward. Similar to all mothers, “He composed.

When Mr. Modi visited her home on December 4 for the assembly election in Gujarat, his home state, they were last spotted together in public.

Heeraben resided in the household of Mr. Modi’s younger brother. On social media, a number of politicians and ministers posted condolences for her passing.

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, offered Mr. Modi a message of sympathy. Rajnath Singh, the defence minister of India, said that the news left him “very grieved.”

He stated, “The loss of a mother leaves such an emptiness in one’s life that is impossible to fill. Rahul Gandhi, the head of the opposition, also expressed his sympathies to Mr Modi and his family.

Heeraben was born in 1923 in Visnagar, in the Mehsana district of Gujarat. In his blog, Mr. Modi stated that “her childhood was one of poverty and misery.”

She married Damodardas Mulchand Modi when she was a teenager and relocated to the nearby town of Vadnagar.

In Vadnagar, Mr Modi writes, “Our family used to live in a little house that didn’t even have a window, much less a luxury like a toilet or a bathroom.”

He characterized his mother as timely, orderly, and diligent. He noted that she would hum her favourite hymns and bhajans as she worked.

Heeraben never went to public events, Mr Modi claimed, adding that she had only ever accompanied him to two occasions, the second of which was in 2001 when he first took the oath of office as Gujarat’s chief minister.

“Since then, she has never accompanied me to a single public event,” he wrote.

Even though he took office as prime minister of India in 2014, Heeraben only paid him a visit in Delhi in 2016. She was shown around Mr Modi’s official residence in images he shared of himself.

Months later, when Mr Modi’s administration controversially outlawed 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in an effort to combat hidden wealth, Heeraben was pictured visiting a bank to exchange old notes, just like millions of other Indians.

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