Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to launch the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Lok Sabha poll campaign today, starting from Congress National President M Mallikarjun Kharge’s home turf in Karnataka, Kalaburagi. PM Modi will arrive in the southern state on Saturday afternoon at around 2 pm to address a mega rally in Kalaburagi’s N V Ground.
Kharge had fought the 2019 general election from Kalaburagi – the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency – when he had lost to BJP’s Umesh Jadhav. This was his first electoral loss after a political career stretching across decades. The saffron party has once again decided to field Jadhav from the seat, where it has disrupted the Congress party’s historical dominan.
After Kharge’s loss in 2019, the grand old party is in talks to field his son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani instead, who is a businessman. “The Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha’s hands are full. In addition to managing party affairs at the national level, he has to coordinate with INDIA bloc partners”, a senior party leader had said in the matter.
PM Modi is starting off the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll campaign from the south, and is scheduled to be in party veteran B S Yediyurappa’s home district, Shivamogga, on March 18.
The BJP, which lost to Congress in the May 10 assembly election in Karnataka, is looking to regain its foothold in the south. Regional party the Janata Dal (Secular) has also joined hands with the BJP to fight the upcoming Lok Sabha polls with a united front. The JDS is expected to contest from three seats, namely Mandya, Hassan and Kolar.
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