After his successful rally in Meerut on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hit the Lok Sabha election campaign trail across India over the next few days. Similarly, after a two-day visit to Rajasthan, union home minister Amit Shah will also head to Karnataka. BJP national president JP Nadda too will launch his campaign journey for 2024 with his visit to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan over the next few days.
The top three leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party are all set to hit the ground running, with their focus on Mission 400 for the polls beginning this month.
MODI
On April 2, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin his poll canvassing in the hill state of Uttarakhand. The PM, who enjoys immense popularity and has a deep connect with the state known as Devbhoomi, will hold a rally in Rudrapur that afternoon. Later, he will go to Kotputli in Rajasthan.
Then, on April 4, the Prime Minister will hold a rally in Bihar’s Jamui constituency where BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) is a contender. The incumbent MP from that Lok Sabha seat is Chirag Paswan, who will this time contest from his father’s bastion, Hajipur.
The same day, the PM will also go to Cooch Behar In north Bengal. That is the seat from where union minister of state Nisith Pramanik Is presently the Member of Parliament. This is a BJP-dominated region where the party saw major success in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. There was violence in the constituency recently with the Trinamool Congress alleging that Pramanik’s supporters attacked its minister and local MLA Udayan Guha, a charge that has been denied by the BJP. Incidentally, TMC chairperson and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will be in the region on the same day as PM Modi.
On April 6, the Prime Minister will visit Uttar Pradesh where he will hold a rally in Saharanpur followed by a roadshow in Ghaziabad. Saharanpur has seen the return of Raghav Lakhanpal, who was not able to win in the 2019 elections. He will take on popular Congress politician and poet Imran Pratapgarhi. The BJP has fielded a new candidate in Ghaziabad, considered a safe seat for the party. Atul Garg has replaced two-time MP and union minister of state General VK Singh. The PM’s roadshow in Ghaziabad is expected to start at about 5pm and stretch over close to 2 km.
The Prime Minister will return to the all-important state on April 9, this time for a rally in Pilibhit. Jitin Prasada has been given a ticket here, replacing Varun Gandhi. Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi though has been fielded from Sultanpur yet again by the BJP. A prominent Brahmin face, Jitin will test his electoral fortunes for the Lok Sabha for the first time since he switched from the Congress to the BJP in 2021, and became a minister in UP’s Yogi Adityanath government.
After having meetings in Rajasthan over the past two days, union home minister Amit Shah will go to the southern state of Karnataka. He is expected to reach the capital city Bengaluru shortly.
While Shah is slated to hold an important organisation meeting with the BJP representatives of the state, on Tuesday, he will have two important programmes. He will chair the Shakti Kendra Pramukh event in Bengaluru. This will be followed by a roadshow of the home minister in Ramanagara.
NADDA
BJP national president JP Nadda will also be hitting the campaign trail, with a two-day visit to the central state of Madhya Pradesh, followed by Rajasthan. On Tuesday, Nadda is expected to hold three programmes in MP: an intellectual summit in Jabalpur, followed by a rally in Shardul, and a Shakti Kendra meeting in Jabalpur in the evening.
On the second day of his two-day visit, Nadda will perform a darshan at the Ujjain Mahakal temple before heading out to Rajasthan. The BJP national president will hold a rally in Jhalawar on Wednesday afternoon. This is the bastion of the Raje-Scindia family. Vasundhara Raje’s son Dushyant Singh is contesting here to win his fourth Lok Sabha term.
Nadda will then return to Madhya Pradesh where he is expected to hold an organisation meeting for BJP leaders from the cluster of Indore Ratlam and Khandwa. The BJP chief will also hold a meeting of the core group of the state unit, in which top leaders, including chief minister Mohan Yadav, are expected to be present.
Sources say this is the beginning of the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign, and in the coming weeks, the saffron party will launch several major leaders for electioneering across the length and breadth of the country. The first round of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election will take place on April 19, with the final phase on June 1, and the votes will be counted on June 4.
(With inputs from agencies)
