What could be bigger than your big day being graced by the country’s Prime Minister! Founder and CEO of hospitality tech platform OYO, Ritesh Agarwal sought the blessings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Accompanied by his fiancé and mother, Agarwal, received a warm welcome from the PM, whom he invited to his March wedding.
CEO of the hospitality chain, who is also one of the youngest billionaires in India, recently met PM Modi and shared a few glimpses of the meet on social media. Ahead of his wedding next month, Agarwal invited the Prime Minister and sought his blessings for the same.
“With the blessings of Pradhan Mantri @narendramodi ji, we are all set for a new beginning. Words cannot express the warmth with which he received us,” the OYO founder wrote along with some pictures from his meeting with the PM. Agarwal further shared that his mother is inspired by PM Modi’s vision for women empowerment, adding that “Geet, from Express (Uttar) Pradesh, was heartened to meet him.”
The pictures showed the OYO boss, his fiancé and mother posing with the PM. One of the images show the couple touching the feet of the PM to seek his blessings. In another picture, Agarwal is seen draping a shawl on the PM’s shoulders.
Apart from seeking the PM’s blessings and inviting him to his wedding, Agarwal stressed on his commitment to enable growth of tourism and entrepreneurship in India across Rayagada, Gir, Ladakh, Rameswaram, Meghalaya and more.
OYO Rooms founder Ritesh Agarwal is currently one of the youngest billionaires in India. He was born and brought up in a middle-class Marwari family in Rayagada, Orissa. Agarwal is a college dropout who quit studies to pursue entrepreneurship. He was eventually accepted into the Thiel Fellowship Program, which awards young entrepreneurs a $100,000 (roughly Rs 82 lakhs) grant.
He used the money to float his startup OYORooms nearly 10 years ago. His company is now operational in over 800 cities across 80 countries and is considered one of the fastest-growing budget hotel franchises.
