BJP Woos Madhya Pradesh With Over Half-A-Dozen Visits By PM Modi, Poll-Eve Largesse

New Delhi: Addressing the nation on the occasion of the 77th Independence Day Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would return to the Red Fort next year, apparently sounding the BJP’s poll bugle for the Lok Sabha elections slated for 2024. However, before it he made a statement during a visit to Sagar district of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh on July 12 when he stated that  “Sant Ravidas will bless me to inaugurate his temple, today I am laying the foundation stone.”

In Madhya Pradesh where the assembly elections are not more than three months away, the central leadership of the BJP led by PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah has taken full command while appointing two Union Ministers Bhupendra Singh Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw as election in-charge and making the senior-most state party leader and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar the election convenor.

The BJP’s preparations for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh are going along with those for the assembly elections. Political observers believe that the intense exercise of the BJP at the district, block and booth level are for the LS polls.

“Besides, the RSS and the BJP’s organizational leaders have also started their operations for the Lok Sabha. The BJP has high hopes from Madhya Pradesh because it won 28 out of 29 seats in 2019,” a political observer said.

Other political observers pointed out that PM Modi has made over half-a-dozen visits to Madhya Pradesh since September last year and every time he has made big announcements beside highlighting the welfare schemes introduced by his government since 2014.

More importantly, in every visit to Madhya Pradesh, PM Modi has gifted something big to the people of the state. It began with releasing eight Namibian Cheetahs at Kuno National Park (KNP) on his birthday on September 17, 2022. One month later, he dedicated 'Mahakal Lok' to the people during his visit to Ujjain on October 11.

This year, PM Modi made his first visit to Indore on January 9 when he took part in the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas., that was held after a four-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On April 1, 2023, he flagged off the Bhopal-Delhi Vande Bharat Express train at Rani Kamalapati railway station. On April 24, he visited Rewa (centre of Vindhya region) to address the Gram Sabha and Panchayati Raj members. He also laid the foundation stone of Rewa airport.

On June 27, he visited Bhopal and addressed a large gathering of booth workers of the BJP and also announced two more Vande Bharat Express trains - Bhopla to Indore and Bhopal to Jabalpur..

Modi visited Shahdol district on July 1 to take part in various programmes, including the culmination of the 'Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra' and launch the National Sickle Cell Anemia Elimination Mission. During his visit to Shahdol, he interacted with tribals at 'khat sabha'.

The last time he visited poll-bound MP was on August 12 when he laid the foundation stone for a Rs. 100-crore temple dedicated to the 14th-century mystic poet and social reformer Sant Ravidas in Sagar district. During his address he said, "Sant Ravidas would bless him to inaugurate the temple when it would be completed in the next one-and-a-half years."

"He (PM Modi) won't talk more about the state government's schemes during his address. Even the state BJP leaders who were talking about the 'Madhya Pradesh Model', have started highlighting the Centre's schemes during the assembly elections campaign. CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan's 'MP Model' is not visible now, even when there are assembly elections. One can see that the Union Ministers appointed for the assembly elections are talking more about the Centre's schemes," a senior journalist said.

Madhya Pradesh has 29 Lok Sabha seats and the BJP had won 28 of these in 2019. The Congress could win only the Chhindwara seat even though the Kamal Nath led Congress government was in power in Madhya Pradesh then. The BJP has high hopes from Madhya Pradesh and therefore PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have been making all out efforts to retain the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats there.