BENGALURU: Farmers top the priority list in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poll strategy for 2019, and he is already on course to reach out to them with plans for 50 mega rallies all over the country in the next two months. BJP hopes to win at least 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka and Modi is set to turn the poll heat on in the state with a mega farmers’ rally in Chikkodi on July 29.
“Modi will address a mega farmers’ rally in Chikkodi on July 29. The rally is part of the warm-up exercise to reach out to farmers ahead of the Lok Sabha elections,” BJP State General Secretary N Ravikumar told Express. About 1 lakh farmers are expected to attend the proposed rally. These rallies will be in addition to the poll-related rallies to be addressed by Modi in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh later this year.
The Prime Minister is said to be keen to cover about 150 constituencies through these 50 rallies. Apart from Modi, party national president Amit Shah and other senior leaders like Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh will also be addressing a slew of rallies with a clear plan to cover all the Lok Sabha constituencies. Amit Shah, whose July 28 visit to Bengaluru has been deferred, is now likely to visit the state only after August 10. The visit has been deferred due to Monsoon Session of Parliament and engagements with party related work in Delhi.