Lok Sabha elections 2024: BJP counting on Modi factor to retain power

As the election season heats up, the biggest star campaigner for the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend anywhere between 155-160 poll rallies in the coming weeks, according to sources.

This time, the party will also take the digital route to amplify his messages when he is on the campaign trail.

On Sunday, PM Modi kickstarted his campaign from Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, a seat from where he had started his electioneering in 2019 as well as 2014.

In addition to these rallies, the prime minister has already crisscrossed across the country through 75 rallies. Sources said the plan chalked out for 2024 exceeds the number of rallies from 2019, which stood at 142 rallies. However, in 2014, he was part of a whopping 437 rallies.

Sources, however, said the number of rallies could exceed 155-160 should the situation warrant it. On Tuesday, Modi will speak to party workers from Bihar through video-conferencing.

The focus is on improving performance in the south where they fared poorly, barring Karnataka, in 2019. The sources added that through rallies and VCs, they plan to cover 120 seats in South India.

In the last 90 days, the PM dedicated 25 days of his itinerary to the South. On March 29, he held an interaction with BJP workers in Tamil Nadu via the NaMo app, a rally in Salem on March 19, a roadshow in Coimbatore and a public meeting in Telangana’s Jagtial on March 18, in addition to a meeting at Andhra Pradesh’s Palnadu on March 17 and another at Kalaburagi in Karnataka on March 16.

Sources also said PM Modi will hold as many as 10 rallies in Uttar Pradesh alone, where the state unit is working on mobilising over five lakh people in some of the key rallies. A grand roadshow is also being planned in Varanasi.

Home Minister Amit Shah is also expected to hold about a dozen rallies in the state.