Before the announcement of the State Assembly polls in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to step up his campaign, with visits over multiple days to launch new projects, and hold rallies and roadshows, in half-a-dozen different places across the State.
Beginning October 9, the PM will be in Gujarat for three days till October 11, during which he is expected to visit the famous Sun Temple at Modhera in Mehsana, where he will dedicate a solar power plant, and in Jambusar, where he will lay the foundation stone for a bulk drug manufacturing estate to be developed by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation. He will visit Jam Kandorana in Rajkot district, and Jamnagar. He will also visit Anand in central Gujarat.
In Jam Kandorna, he will be addressing a political gathering organised by local legislator Jayesh Radadiya, son of late parliamentarian Vitthal Radadiya. Mr. Jayesh Radadiya is a prominent Leuva Patidar face in the Saurashtra region.
On October 18, Mr. Modi will arrive to inaugurate the Defence Expo being held for the first time in Gandhinagar, and then he visit Rajkot and other places, with his departure likely on October 20.
“PM Narendra Modi will be visiting more than six districts in as many days during his two trips to Gujarat,” a State government official involved in the preparations for Mr. Modi’s visits said.
In the last week of October, Mr. Modi is likely to visit the Statue of Unity in south Gujarat for the Rashtriya Ekta Divas, an annual day organised in the memory of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first Home Minister after Independence.
Since March this year, the Prime Minister has been visiting Gujarat once a month, travelling to a dozen districts to launch new projects and inaugurate completed projects. He was in his home State in the last week of September to inaugurate the National Games and the first phase of the Ahmedabad Metro.
In Gujarat, the PM is the face of the BJP government and is leading the campaign. However, the ruling party has also brought in as many as 10 Union Ministers, including Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and others, for campaigning in various districts across the State.