New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the star campaigner of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is set to launch his re-election campaign this Thursday from Uttar Pradesh, a state that accounts for 80 of the Lok Sabha’s 543 elected MPs and is thus central to any party’s shot at power.
The state had elected 71 BJP MPs and two from its ally Apna Dal in 2014, as the party won 282 seats in the Lok Sabha to form India’s first majority government in three decades. Modi himself represents Varanasi, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, in Parliament.
Modi’s re-election pitch will be launched from Meerut and continue until the final phase of polling on 19 May, with the PM expected to address approximately 150 rallies by the time the Lok Sabha election concludes.
The first rally will be held in an open field at Daurala village of Meerut district, which falls under the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency. The seat votes in the first phase of polling on 11 April.
“The venue is located right next to a toll gate… It is an open field getting cleared for the rally,” a state BJP leader told ThePrint.
BJP candidates for Muzaffarnagar and seven nearby Lok Sabha constituencies — Saharanpur, Meerut, Kairana, Bijnor, Baghpat, Bulandshahr and Ghaziabad — are expected to attend, as are their constituents.
The BJP had won Muzaffarnagar in 2014, for the first time in 16 years, just over a year after one of the worst communal riots in the history of the state killed around 60 people and displaced thousands in the area.
The ensuing polarisation of Hindu-Muslim votes is widely believed to have been the primary factor that changed local political equations and landed the BJP an edge over other players.
The other seven seats were also won by the BJP in 2014, but Kairana currently has a Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) MP following a bypoll necessitated by the death of Hukum Singh.
The eight constituencies to be represented at the rally represent a predominantly agricultural belt, and the PM’s address here is going to focus on the recently-introduced policy of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Samman Nidhi, which provides for a direct benefit transfer of Rs 6,000 to all small land-holders every year.
“We have been told that there would be a crowd of 5 lakh people and that this would be a mix of farmers, women, minorities, labourers etc,” said a state BJP leader.
“The majority of MLAs and booth-level workers will also be present. The preparations are in full swing,” the leader added.
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Poster boy Modi
A senior BJP leader told ThePrint that, as in 2014, the party was counting on Modi’s popularity to win the Lok Sabha election.
“He (Modi) is the party’s chief campaigner and the elections are going to be fought in his name,” the leader added. “It is his election. Him-versus-the-rest is how these elections are going to be contested,” the leader said.
PM Modi, known to address more than one rally a day during campaign seasons, is expected to conduct two to three public meetings daily.
On 28 March, Thursday, for example, PM Modi will head for Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, after Meerut, before making his way for another rally in Jammu.
The next day, he is scheduled to address voters in Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Next on the cards is Bihar on 2 April, where he will address rallies in Gaya and Jamui, and West Bengal [date not known], where he will make stops at Kolkata and Siliguri.
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Yogi factor
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the monk who has come to serve as the BJP’s Hindutva mascot, is also said to be in high demand as a campaigner from state party units.
The former MP, who campaigned extensively for the BJP during assembly elections last year, already set off on the campaign trail Monday with a rally for Mathura MP Hema Malini, who is eyeing a second term from the seat.
I have always closely watched the TYPE of Mr Modi’s photographs that are used. It tells me – – or so I believe – – something about the columnist’s/publication’s attitude to Mr Modi, or his PR department’s attempt about what kind of image they are trying to spread.
Few months before the election mood had set in, a stern, not smiling, somewhat intimidating photos and illustrations of The Leader were beginning to get supplied to publications. A hint of a frown on the face, suggesting exasperation with mediocrity. Now we see a smiling, benign, almost kindly photos of the man who would do anything to win these elections. If THE PRINT is using the SUPPLIED photos, they are compromising their freedom. If they have chosen the photo used in this article on their own, it speaks something for their “free” journalism.
What has the PM been doing for the last 3 years? Hasn’t he only been working on re-election bid? What were the rallies after Pulwama and Balakot about? Unfortunately, we have a PM and a govt that is more interested in social media gimmicks than governing a nation. Goons roam the street without fear, killing people sometimes in the name of cow, sometimes in the name of sending people to Pakistan. Demonetisation broke the back of the rural economy and brought growth down. This government needs to go. Simple as that.
Watched an interview Ms Arfa Khanum Sherwani did with Jat sugarcane farmers in Kairana, the original Ganna, not Jinnah locale. Quite a revelation for a shehari babu like me. A more well informed, politically literate group of citizens would be difficult to find.