On Saturday, NDA presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind will visit Chennai, where separate meetings have been planned with the two factions of the ruling AIADMK.
One faction, led by V.K. Sasikala — which includes Chief Minister E. Palaniswamy — and the other, led by former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, have pledged him their support. Even after securing the support of both factions, getting them into one photo-op in Chennai proved a problem, so the BJP leadership hit upon the idea of separate meetings.
Union Minister for Health J.P. Nadda, BJP general secretary in charge of Tamil Nadu P. Muralidhar Rao and Mangaluru MP Nalin Kateel will accompany Mr. Kovind. The party’s lone MLA in Kerala, O. Rajagopal, will also travel to Chennai to meet Mr. Kovind, so will the MLAs of the NR Congress, led by former Puducherry Chief Minister N.R. Rangaswami.
The Indian National Lok Dal of Haryana pledged support to Mr. Kovind on Thursday, taking the number of parties backing him to 30.
After meeting electoral college members in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala, Mr. Kovind will visit Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad in Telangana on July 4, accompanied by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu. The ruling parties in these States — Telegu Desam Party and Telangana Rashtra Samithi — and the Opposition YSR Congress, led by Jaganmohan Reddy, have already pledged their support to Mr. Kovind.
The final port of call for Mr. Kovind in the south would be Karnataka. He will in Bengaluru on July 5, accompanied by Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs H.N. Ananth Kumar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawarchand Gahlot and BJP general secretary Saroj Pandey. “Mr. Kovind will visit the Northeast on July 6 and 7. As of now, the Chief Ministers of 21 States have extended support to him. We are confident of winning,” said a senior office-bearer of the BJP.
