BJP looks to raise election pitch with PM Modi, HM Shah on back-to-back visits to poll-bound Karnataka

Back-to-back visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to poll-bound Karnataka is set to raise the election fever in the state as the BJP banks on the two senior leaders to give fresh impetus to its campaign.

Shah, who is arriving here on Thursday night, will have a breakfast meeting with Karnataka BJP strongman and former chief minister B S Yediyurappa at his residence on Friday.

Also on Friday, the Union Minister will attend the Regional Conference with Southern States and Union Territories on Smuggling of Narcotics and National Security.

Shah, who also holds the cooperation portfolio, will then visit Kommaghatta village on the outskirts of Bengaluru where he will lay the foundation stone of the ‘Sahakara Samruddhi Soudha’, and inaugurate various development works of the Cooperative Ministry.

According to BJP sources, he will visit the state again on March 26.

Assembly elections are due in Karnataka by May, for which the schedule is likely to be announced by the Election Commission of India in the coming days.

Prime Minister Modi would visit the state — his seventh this year — on Saturday during which he will take part in various events including a Metro ride, and address a mega public meet organised by the BJP.

During the visit, Modi will participate in programmes organised in Chikkaballapura, Bengaluru, and Davangere districts.

The Prime Minister would inaugurate Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research at Chikkaballapura near here.

He will then fly back to Bengaluru in the afternoon to inaugurate the Whitefield Metro Line and will ride in the Metro.

Modi will thereafter proceed to Davangere and address a public meeting, as part of BJP’s poll preparations in Karnataka, marking the culmination of the 8,000 kilometre ‘Vijay Sankapla Yatre’.

The 20 days ‘yatre’, which began from four different parts of the state, in specially designed vehicles or ‘Rathas’, was kickstarted on March 1 by BJP national President J P Nadda at Male Mahadeshwara Hills in Chamarajanagar district. Several senior BJP leaders, Chief Ministers of other BJP-governed states, and Union Ministers had taken part in the programme.

This is said to be the first party meeting which the Prime Minister will be attending, since the poll preparations began in Karnataka.

According to party functionaries, the event is aimed at further energising the BJP cadres in the run-up to Assembly polls.