More than 40,000 people have signed up for India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reception being organized by the Indian American community in the Silicon Valley area of California September 27th this year. As per reports, the number is expected to increase after the registration process is opened to those not affiliated to the 500 community organizations which have joined hands for the reception.
Given that the capacity of SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. — an indoor arena in the heart of Silicon Valley — is just 18,000, the “Indo-American Community of West Coast,” a group created recently to organize the reception, would have to resort to a lottery to determine who would get free tickets to attend the event.
Khanderao Kand, convener of the Indo-American Community of West Coast, tweeted Aug. 22: “25K already registered for Silicon Valley event. Individual registrations to open next week.” In September last year, Modi addressed about 20,000 Indian Americans at the Madison Square Garden in New York, which was also attended by about 40 top American congressmen and senators. Modi is scheduled to travel to San Francisco after addressing a high-level summit on sustainable development hosted by the U.N. on Sept. 25.
Modi’s visit to San Francisco would also revive — after a gap of four decades with the exception of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in 1994 — the post-independence tradition of Indian prime ministers visiting U.S. cities other than New York or Washington, D.C.