Modi, Union ministers to address rallies in Karnataka

The BJP is set to step up a gear with its campaign mode with just a little over two weeks to go for the May 12 Assembly polls.

A high-voltage campaign, including a series of mammoth rallies to be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, road shows, social media blitzkrieg, door-to-door campaigning, has been lined up by the party for the next 15 days.

Besides, party national president Amit Shah will fly down to Bengaluru on April 26 and is likely to stay put in the state capital till the election day. Shah, besides addressing rallies, will also hold regular meetings to review micromanagement of polls.

Tentatively, Modi would start his rallies by addressing a massive convention in Udupi on May 1. He is expected to visit Chamarajanagar later that day.

In all, Modi is expected to address 16 rallies in eight days. He will chair a meeting of party candidates from all 224 Assembly constituencies.

Star campaigners

Star campaigners of the party, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivaraj Singh Chouhan, Union Ministers Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, and actor Hema Malini, will criss-cross the state addressing rallies and road shows, sources said.

In the days to come, BJP would come up with constituency-wise manifestos for all 224 Assembly segments. The party had invited suggestions from voters for its manifesto.

A state-wide manifesto and one exclusively for Bengaluru will also be released.

The 11 regional in-charges handpicked by Shah, including party functionaries Swatantra Dev Singh, Bhupender Yadav, Mangal Pandey, Satish Upadhyay, Om Prakash Mathur, will also stay put in Bengaluru to guide the huge organisational set-up of the party on a daily basis.