The flow of prominent national leaders to Madhya Pradesh has increased drastically in the past few weeks as the assembly polls are just four months away. The topmost leaders of the ruling BJP – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and party national president J.P. Nadda—will be in different parts of the state in 10 days starting June 22.
These visits, though part of the month-long mega outreach campaign of the saffron party on the completion of nine years of PM Modi’s rule, are more to be seen as election-related, political watchers feel.
The visits of the top leaders closely follow the launch of the assembly election campaign of the opposition Congress by party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi on June 12 at Jabalpur. A day after the Congress launched its campaign, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh was in Rajgarh for a visit.
Modi’s schedule
PM Modi will attend a sickle cell anemia awareness programme in the tribal-dominated Dhar district in western Madhya Pradesh on June 27 before reaching Bhopal on the same day to flag off Jabalpur-Indore Vande Bharat Express. However, his main programme in Bhopal will be to digitally address party workers at 10 lakh booths across the country.
BJP state president Vishnu Dutt Sharma told media persons on Wednesday that 2,500 selected party workers will be physically present at the Bhopal event. The PM’s address will be transmitted to over 64,100 booths in Madhya Pradesh. As many as 38 lakh workers in the state enrolled digitally to attend the digital rally. They include the president and members of booth committees and panna (voters’ page level) committees, Sharma said.
He said a roadshow of the prime minister is also likely on the occasion, though the detailed schedule would be released later.
Reacting to news of the PM’s proposed visit, MP Congress chief Kamal Nath said everyone, including the PM, was welcome to visit the state. “Let them come to the election arena; we are already in the arena. The voters now are very perceptive and they understand everything well and they are not to be swayed by any theatrics,” he said.
Modi’s visit will be preceded by that of Amit Shah on June 22 at tribal-dominated Balaghat in southeastern MP. Shah has been visiting Madhya Pradesh almost every two months in the recent past. He has personally taken responsibility to ensure the BJP win at Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency, the home turf of MP Congress chief and former chief minister Kamal Nath. The BJP has made a special plan to rout the Nath family in the LS polls scheduled for 2024.
Nath won the LS seat nine times right from 1980 to 2014, save a brief stint of his wife Alka Nath in 1996-97 and one defeat at the hands of former chief minister Sunderlal Patwa, of the BJP, in 1997 by-polls after Alka Nath resigned. However, he won back the seat within a year in 1998 general elections. The BJP hasn’t ever held the seat other than this brief tenure. Currently, Nath’s son Nakul is the Member of Parliament from the seat while Nath himself is MLA from Chhindwara assembly constituency, which he contested after becoming chief minister of the state in 2018.
Nadda’s visit is scheduled for Khargone on June 30 – the last day of the mega outreach campaign.
BJP slams Arun Yadav for comment on PM’s father
State BJP leaders, including state president Sharma, hit out at former state Congress president Arun Yadav over a comment on PM Modi’s late father. While reacting to reports of the PM's proposed visit to the state, Yadav had said “Let Modi ji come or anyone above him may come too. Nadda ji is coming anyway. Even if Modi ji’s father wants to come, he can come. We have no objection, but there is a wind of change in Madhya Pradesh in favour of Congress.”
Sharma hit out at Yadav and the grand old party in a series of tweets, saying frustrated at the global popularity of PM Modi, Congress leaders are breaching the dignity of language to gain cheap popularity. “Continuing to make undignified comments on PM Modi and his family shows the cheap mentality of the Congress. Now Arun Yadav has breached language dignity and commented on the late father of the PM. Such comments are made by Congress leaders at the direction of the Gandhi family and therefore the Gandhi family remains silent.” He added that the people will answer this insult of the PM through their vote and asked Yadav, Kamal Nath and Rahul Gandhi to apologise for the comments.
