Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a new campus of an educational institute of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims on Friday in an outreach to one of Mumbai’s most influential communities ahead of the high-stakes municipal elections in the city.

PM Modi was seen walking, holding hands with the head of the community, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, at the new campus of Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah, the principal educational institute of the Dawoodi Bohra community, at Marol in suburban Andheri.

“I have known four generations of Syedna sahab‘s family. I am here as a family member, not a PM. You have fulfilled a 150-year-old dream by setting up this institute,” he said, praising the members of the community for changing with the times and maintaining their “relevance”.

The institute works to protect the learning traditions and literary culture of the community, and the new centre will impart Arabic learning.

PM Modi also said that in the last few years “an atmosphere of unprecedented trust” has been created in the country and praised his government for strides in education.

“In the last eight years, every week, one university and two colleges were opened in country,” he said, adding that while from 2004 to 2014, when the Congress-led government was in office, 145 medical colleges were came up in country, after he assumed office in 2014, more than 260 medical colleges have been set up.

The event was part of PM Modi’s second visit to the city in less than a month, which saw him unveil several infrastructure projects earlier in the day. On January 19, the PM inaugurated and laid foundation stones for projects worth over Rs 38,000 crore in the financial capital.

The Prime Minister’s visit assumes significance given the upcoming elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) – the richest civic body in India.