Narendra Modi to kick-start campaign from Meerut on March 28

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin his election campaign with big rallies in Meerut, Jammu and Rudrapur on March 28. All these seats in the three states of UP, J&K and Uttarakhand go to polls in Phase-1 of the elections on April 11. Modi is also expected to be in Gaya in Bihar for an election rally soon after, party sources told ET.

BJP President Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be camping in Meerut on the night of March 26 for a marathon meeting with West UP leaders of BJP on the election strategy in these eight seats.

Yogi has already embarked on a clear polarisation pitch in West UP, saying in Mathura on Monday that the Samajawadi Party had got Jat youths killed during the Muzzafarnagar riots in 2013 and claimed the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) had adopted silence on the same then. “When innocents like Sachin and others were killed in Muzzafarnagar – they were Jat youths – why was the RLD silent and singing peans to Azam Khan? SP was getting these youths killed and the RLD remained silent,” Yogi said. RLD is contesting the Mathura seat against the BJP’s sitting MP Hema Malini.

Yogi also said that Akhilesh Yadav had a mentality like “Duryodhana” and hence wanted to once install a statue of Duryodhana in Saifai. “Lord Krishna’s statue can only be built by us,” Yogi said referring to himself. He also accused Akhilesh Yadav as Chief Minister of trying to withdraw cases against those involved in the conspiracy of attacking Ram Janambhoomi and claimed Congress was sympathetic towards stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir. “Rahul Gandhi meets US diplomats and says India does not face any threat from Jaish-e-Mohammad,” Yogi claimed.

With BJP facing Muslim candidates on many West UP seats, the polarisation card could consolidate the Hindu vote for BJP. BSP has put up Haji Yakoob Qureshi as its candidate in Meerut while Imran Masood and Fazul-Ur-Rehman are the Congress and the BSP candidates respectively in Saharanpur. Congress has changed its Amroha candidate from Rashid Alvi to Sachin Choudhary to avoid a division of Muslim votes with BSP putting up Danish Ali against BJP’s KS Tanwar. Congress has put up Naseemuddin Siddiqui from Bijnor and Imran Pratapgarhi from the Fathepur Sikri seat.

Speaking in Saharanpur on Monday, Yogi referred to Imran Masood as the son-in-law of Masood Azhar and also said Azhar would be killed in Pakistan much like Osama Bin Laden.