BENGALURU: In the past three months, there have been three frequent flyers to Bidar and Kalaburagi districts -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda, who have set their eyes on the home turf of AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge. Looking to conquer Kalyan Karnataka, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned.
On Tuesday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be taking part in a Mahaprachara Abhiyana, and interacting with representatives from industry and commerce, followed by a women’s convention and door-to-door campaign.
Animal Husbandry Minister Prabhu Chavan told TNIE that candidates from Bidar and Kalaburagi are going to the people with the state government’s report card. “PM Modi is accepted as a world leader. If he is coming to our region, it will make a huge impact on us and the party. Amit Shah and Nadda are known for their political strategies and have the capacity to strengthen the party right from the booth level. All these factors will lead to a BJP sweep,” he said. In effect, the BJP wants to cut into Kharge’s influence in this belt.
The BJP’s Umesh Jadhav managed to defeat Kharge by a margin of around 1 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In February this year, Kharge had in the Upper House stated that Modi was targeting his home constituency. “Even when Parliament session is going on, he went to my constituency,” Kharge had stated.
Since January, the top three BJP leaders have been in and out of Bidar and Kalaburagi almost every month. In January, Modi had symbolically distributed title deeds to the Lambani community in Kalaburagi, and will be in Bidar again this month-end. In March, Shah visited Bidar twice — on March 3 to launch the Vijay Sankalp Yatra and on March 26 to hoist a 103-ft Tricolour and inaugurate a memorial of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at Gorata ground.
In January, Nadda was in Kalaburagi to interact with booth-level workers and was in Bidar last Friday. Bidar and Kalaburagi share a border with Telangana, which goes to polls in the next few months. BJP, which had won in the Hyderabad corporation polls, is hoping to influence pockets there while visiting Karnataka.