At 9.09 am, on the first day of the auspicious Navratri festival, the Congress party in Madhya Pradesh declared its first list of 144 Vidhan Sabha candidates, ahead of the State Assembly election.
There is a lot of numerology involved here. Navratri is celebrated for nine consecutive nights, and 9.09 has nine on either side. Also, the sum of the digits in the number 144 is nine, coinciding with the worship of the nine goddesses during the nine-day-long Navratri festivities.
The Congress also released a 56-second video referring to "9 din, 9 shapath, 1 vision”(nine days, nine vows, and one vision).
The video shows MP Congress Committee President Kamal Nath worshipping the goddess Durga on day one of the festive season, taking a vow to implement the Nari Samman Yojana, a scheme to provide Rs 1500 to every household and Rs 500 for an LPG cylinder.