Prime Minister Narendra Modi would formally kickstart the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lok Sabha election campaign in Karnataka on Saturday from Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge’s home turf— Kalaburagi.
He is scheduled to address a mega public meeting at the district headquarters town’s NV Ground at 2 pm.
Kharge, who had represented Kalaburagi (Gulbarga Lok Sabha segment) twice in the past, lost to BJP’s Umesh Jadhav by a margin of 95,452 votes in the 2019 general elections— the octogenarian leader’s first electoral loss in his political life spanning several decades.
BJP has once again fielded Jadhav from the segment.
Speculations are rife that the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, who has the role of managing the party nationally and coordinating with the opposition INDIA bloc, may not contest the coming polls and, instead, the Congress is likely to field his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani, a businessman, who also manages educational institutions.
On March 18, Modi will be in Shivamogga, the home district of veteran BJP leader BS Yediyurappa, and is scheduled to address a huge public meeting at 2 pm.
Yediyurappa’s son BY Raghavendra is the sitting MP from Shivamogga and has been re-nominated by the party.
After being ousted from power by the Congress in the 2023 Assembly polls, the BJP now is making a strong bid to regain the lost ground in Karnataka.
Sharing details of Modi’s visit, state BJP General Secretary Sunil Kumar on Wednesday said BJP National President JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath along with other leaders will visit different Lok Sabha constituencies for campaigning in the coming days.
Speaking about the party’s poll preparations, he said: “We have divided 28 Lok Sabha constituencies into eight clusters for Lok Sabha elections. Keeping in view the local political and geographical background, programmes and strategies are being worked out in those eight clusters.”
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