Narendra Modi to bombard UP with his rallies

NEW DELHI: A Bharatiya Janata Party leader was in for a surprise when he recently went to check if the party could hold a rally of its prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi at Allahabad University's senate house. "This will seem too small because on that day all SP, BSP students will also become BJP," a youth wing leader of the ruling Samajwadi Party told him.

The words sounded like music to the leader of the country's main opposition, which has identified Uttar Pradesh as the make-or-break state in its drive to oust the Congress-led coalition at the Centre in the 2014 general elections.

The BJP is planning a spate of rallies for Modi in the state, beginning with four rallies through October, a party leader told ET, adding that these will be followed by a rally in Lucknow in Diwali, from where former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a five-time member of Parliament.

UP, India's most populous state, accounts for 80 seats and the BJP is seeking to raise its count four-fold from the 10 that it won in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. It is hoping that the Akhilesh Yadav government's crackdown on the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's proposed 'chaurasi kosi parikrama yatra' and other attempts to consolidate its support among the Muslim voters will result in a polarisation, driving more Hindu voters to the BJP and help revive the party in the state.

Modi's close aide Amit Shah, a former home minister of Gujarat who is in-charge of UP, has been touring extensively in an exercise to familiarise himself with the politically crucial state. The party is banking heavily on the Modi factor on three major counts of Hindutva, development and corruption, a BJP leader said. The leader, who did not wish to be named, claimed that the BJP planned to cash in on the "anger" in the majority community against the government's Muslim appeasement evident in the banning of the VHP's yatra, the Durga Shakti case and the proposal to drop terror charges against some Muslim youth.

In an attempt to reach out to the over one crore traders in the state, the BJP will also raise the issue of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail.