In a bid to cash in on the youth factor and make inroads into the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party has announced that it would hold a public meeting to be addressed by its man of the moment, Narendra Modi.
The party’s national general secretary Muralidhar Rao told reporters that the Gujarat Chief Minister would take part in the public meeting on September 26, but did not specify where the meeting would take place. He also said the party’s Lok Sabha leader Sushma Swaraj would address fishermen in a public meeting in October.
Rao made these announcements to the reporters in Chennai after taking part in a protest in the morning in Tiruvallur. He said the party would roll out a number of programmes aimed at mobilising support with an eye on the coming LS polls, as was decided at a high level meeting with party’s national leadership and state unit presidents held in New Delhi on Sunday. The meeting had decided to undertake missions targeting specific constituencies such as farmers, youth, members of SCs, etc.
Rao added that his party’s central leadership was in solidarity with the sentiments expressed by outfits in TN on the Lankan Tamils issue. He however steered clear of committing to the demand that the Indian government boycott the CHOGM scheduled to be held in Colombo from Nov 15 to 17.
“Our party’s state unit has already said it wants the Centre to boycott the CHOGM. We echo the contexts, comments and sentiments expressed on the issue by various outfits in TN. But the national leadership has not yet taken a position on the boycott,’’ he said.