Prime Minister NarendraModi addressed 142 rallies during his marathon election campaign, devoting 40 per cent of these in the politically-crucial Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha which have a combined seat strength of 143 LokSabha seats.
During the high-pitch campaign that began from Meerut inUttar Pradesh and concluded in Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, Modi also held fourroadshows and finally appeared at a press conference where he did not answerany questions, attracting a lot of criticism. The Prime Minister addressed thehighest number of 29 rallies in UP, followed by 17 in Trinamool Congress-ruledWest Bengal and 8 in BJD-ruled Odisha.
In the current elections, the Prime Minister devoted ampletime in campaigning in UP amid a sense in the BJP that it would not be easy forthe party to repeat the performance of 2014 because of the alliance formed byarch rivals Samajwadi Party and BSP, along with RLD.
His greater thrust on personal campaign in West Bengal andOdisha is because of the intent of the BJP to improve its performance in thesetwo states.
Although the BJP and the Prime Minister claim that WestBengal will help the party crossing 300-mark, a top BJP leader, on condition ofanonymity, told IANS that the last ditch aggressive effort by the saffron partyin West Bengal was to reach the majority mark. The BJP has been makingdetermined efforts to make inroads in West Bengal and Odisha since the last twoyears with the help of RSS deputing leaders like Shiv Prakash, Saudan Singh andArvindMenon.
After the Assembly results in the Hindi heartland states ofMadhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan came as a major shock for the BJP,the party deputed more foot soldiers of RSS in these two states, a BJP leaderprivy to the development told IANS.
“The target set in these two states is at least30,” he said, adding that the Prime Minister’s rallies were plannedaccordingly in these states as he could himself asses the ground situation.Sensing how crucial these states could be forthe BJP, the Prime Minister devoted over 35 per cent time of his campaign. Asallies like JD-U, LJP and Shiv Sena were there, the BJP used their leaders tooto woo public support. The Prime Minister addressed 8 rallies in North Eaststates, four in Jharkhand, three each in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana andChhattisgarh, two each in Telangana, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Andhra Pradesh,Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala. He addressed one rallies each in Goa and Delhi.