Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi on Tuesday to consider dispelling the election dismay after the BJP’s recent loss in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
The visit, his first since the poll results revealed a decrease in support for his party, will have him interact with farmers, an important segment of the population.
The focus event of the PM’s visit will be his inaugural address at the PM Kisan Samman Sammelan at the Indore Maharishi Dayanand Charitable Trust ground, where he is to inaugurate the 17th installment of the PM Kisan Nidhi scheme.
This scheme aims to provide monetary support to the Small and Marginal farmers in the country, and through this latest and enhanced tranche of over ₹20,000 crores directly gets transferred.
The selection of Varanasi as a place is quite meaningful because the above area was not fully aligned with the BJP politically in the state. This is hardly the case anymore because although the party, as well as its ally Apna Dal-Soneylal, had won 7 out of the 12 Lok Sabha seats in the region in the 2019 general elections, this time, they were only successful in clinching 3 seats, thus failing to capture the several seats which should have been theirs.
Even when it comes to the PM Kisan Nidhi event, Modi ensured that they were held in one of his parliamentary constituencies in a bid to go further and show the farmers that he still cares about them, especially when Uttar Pradesh has been a demographic that has been crucial to BJP.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister will extend the membership to over 30,000 rural women from the Self Help Groups (SHGs) to be conferred as the Krishi Sakhis or the para-extension workers trained to deliver the required agricultural services to their fellow countrymen.
This wooing of farmers and women farmers before the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections indicates that the BJP is not sleeping when it comes to the bargainings that led to its loss in the recent state polls.
Despite this, the BJP appears to be relying on the competency of the main face of its poll campaign, PM Modi, a charismatic leader who has been declared by the party as its star campaigner who has an electoral success rate in the state.
