Now, you can't gift PM Modi a bouquet of flowers anymore: Here's why

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures as he addresses an election campaign rally in Allahabad, India, February 20, 2017. REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash - RTSZHO9

Now onwards, all governments and Union Territories across the country cannot present flower bouquets to the Prime Minister as gifts at any occasion, as per multiple media reports.

However, as suggested by PM Modi himself, books or a khadi handkerchief was an acceptable gift to greet the Prime Minister.

The move could possibly have some “Swachch Bharat” connection to it. Prime Minister Modi during one of his addresses at a “Mann ki Baat” programme had said that people should opt for utilitarian gifts like books and handkerchiefs and scrap flower bouquets that end up as waste in a few days time.

"I would not reject if someone gifts me a bouquet but I feel that this issue should continue to be discussed," Modi had said in the programme.

Here's Modi's Mann Ki Baat episode where he talked about the issue -

“When I was in Gujarat, I had set this tradition of welcoming, by not giving bouquets, but books or handkerchiefs instead. And that too, a ‘Khadi’ handkerchief, so that it promotes ‘Khadi’. Till the time I was in Gujarat, this habit had been ingrained in us, but after coming here, I had lost that habit. When I went to Kerala, it was rekindled,” PM Modi said in the address.