Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who some party colleagues want to see as prime ministerial candidate, will speak at a leading Delhi University college Wednesday.
He will address students and the faculty of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), which has produced a string of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel, Jagdish Mukhi and Vijay Jolly.
Meanwhile around 50 students holding placards and banners have started their protest outside the SRCC against the Gujarat Chief Minister's visit.
Modi will speak around 4 p.m. as as part of "our Business Conclave 2013", SRCC principal P.C. Jain told IANS.
Modi's talk will be on Emerging Business Models in the Global Scenario.
Durgesh Tripathi of the All India Students Federation (AISF) said its members will demonstrate outside the college.
Tripathi told IANS that it was wrong for SRCC, reputed to be one of the best colleges in Asia in commerce, to invite Modi who was chief minister during the 2002 Gujarat communal riots.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls due in 2014, there is growing clamour in the BJP that Modi should be named the prime ministerial candidate.
Among the leaders who have openly come out in his support are Ram Jethmalani, Yashwant Sinha, C.P. Thakur and Shatrughan Sinha.
Another party colleague Muqtar Abbas Naqvi has said Modi was one of its eight leaders who could become the prime ministerial candidate.
The SRCC was founded in 1920 as Commercial School and was initially located in Old Delhi. It became the Commercial College, and got affiliated to Delhi University in 1926.
It became the SRCC, after industrialist Lala Shri Ram, in 1952.