India, May 9 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday felicitated and sought blessings from 98-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Makhanlal Sarkar during the swearing-in ceremony of the new BJP government at Kolkata's Brigade Parade Ground.

The gesture came before Suvendu Adhikari took oath as West Bengal's first ever BJP chief minister, in the presence of senior BJP leaders, CMs of other states and hundreds of party workers as well as supporters.

Makhan Lal Sarkar is regarded as one of the BJP's earliest grassroots organisers in West Bengal and has remained associated with the nationalist movement since the post-Independence years.

In 1952, he was arrested in Kashmir while accompanying Syama Prasad Mukherjee during the movemen...