Photo stand of Narendra Modi with base price of Rs 500 fetches Rs 1 crore at e-auction

New Delhi: A silver ‘kalash’ and a photo stand with a picture of Narendra Modi, both gifted to him, fetched Rs 1 crore each at an e-auction organised by the Union culture ministry, according to the ‘PM Mementos’ website.

The photo stand, which also had a message in Gujarati, had a base price of Rs 500, but sold for Rs 1,00,00,100 on pmmementos.gov.in , a site under the ministry.

The ‘kalash’ has a base price of Rs 18,000 and it sold for Rs 1,00,00,300, according to the site. Both the items were auctioned off on Monday.

Other mementos that sold at a high price included a metallic sculpture of a cow feeding a calf. It received a bid of Rs 51 lakh against a base price of Rs 1,500.

Over 2,700 mementos, including shawls, pagris and jackets, will be auctioned on the site between 14 September and 3 October. These are at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

The base price range from Rs 200 to Rs 2.5 lakh.

The portrait of the prime minister on silk, which was gifted to him by couturier and owner of Seematti Textiles, Beena Kannan, is among the 2,700 items.

The auction is being held on an online portal designed by National Informatics Centre and is open to all.

Another portrait of Modi, done in the Pichhwai style, has a base price of Rs 2 lakh.

During the last auction, a wooden replica of a BMW was the most expensive memento to be sold. It fetched Rs 5 lakh. The proceeds of the current auction will be given to the Namami Gange programme of the government.