NEW DELHI: The BJP will be going all guns blazing for electioneering in Haryana, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah leading the campaign in the state. The BJP has listed party leaders from western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to chip in to swing Jat-ujjar voter in favour of its candidates.Modi is slated to hold four rallies in Haryana. He has already addressed a Rohtak rally where Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s yatra concluded. Shah will hold a dozen rallies, said a senior BJP functionary.
BJP working president J P Nadda will also be intensely campaign in the northern state.Defence Rajnath Singh is scheduled to address 10 rallies, while Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Smriti Irani, Nitin Gadkari, Narendra Singh Tomar, Thaverchand Gehlot will take part in the campaign. The list of star campaigners includes the likes of Lok Sabha MPs Hema Malini, Sunny Deol, Manoj Tiwari, Ravi Kisan and Hans Raj Hans.
Satyapal Singh and Sajeev Balyan, the Jat MPs from western UP, are also in the list. Balyan and Singh had trounced Rashtriya Lok Dal’s father-son duo of Ajit Singh and Jayant Choudhary, respectively. The BJP is eyeing the Jat vote base in Haryana, with the hope that the infighting in Congress and the successors of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) will help it to make inroads into the electorally important caste group.
The BJP has also roped in Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath (UP), Jairam Thakur (Himachal Pradesh), Trivendra Singh Rawat (Uttarakhand) for the campaigning in the state. Haryana will polls on October 21, while the results will be out on October 24. The BJP had won 47 of the total 90 Assembly seats in the 2014 Haryana polls.