Prime Minister Narendra Modi. File photo
Sandeep Rana
Chandigarh, March 30
For the third consecutive time in the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi will be addressing a rally at the Sector 34 ground in the middle of May. Preparations in this regard are already underway as his team from the Centre inspected the Sector 34 ground two days ago and held talks with those concerned, said sources. City BJP president Jatinder Pal Malhotra confirmed that the PM would address a rally here, but the date was yet to be finalised.
The sources said as per tentative plans, Modi could be in the city between May 16 and 18. “The Modi factor will definitely have an impact here. Notably, Chandigarh has always voted for the party that has ruled at the Centre,” said a BJP leader. Even in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it was felt in the local political circles that Modi’s rally had turned the tide in favour of the party candidate MP Kirron Kher at the time when Congress candidate Pawan Kumar Bansal was going strong during the campaigning in Chandigarh.
Significantly, Modi's May 14, 2019, election pitch was more for "Phir ek baar, Modi sarkar", rather than the party candidate. During his nearly 40-minute-long address, he had not mentioned Kher's name even once. Modi had not even asked people to vote for the BJP candidate. All he said was, "Your vote on Kamal will go to Modi's account."
In the last Lok Sabha elections, sitting MP Kirron Kher had retained the Chandigarh seat by garnering 2,30,967 votes. While Bansal got 1,84,218 votes, AAP candidate Harmohan Dhawan, who passed away recently, polled only 13,781 votes.
In the 2014 elections, Kher had secured 1,91,362 votes, while Bansal and AAP's Gul Panag had got 1,21,720 and 1,08,362 votes, respectively.
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