Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit his home State, Gujarat, on Monday to address a gathering of Bharatiya Janata Party workers and mark the culmination of the two-leg Gujarat Gaurav Yatra, which was launched from Karamsad on October 1 and from Porbandar the following day.
“On Monday, the PM will address a gathering at the Gujarat Gaurav Mahasammelan organised by the State BJP,” BJP State president Jitu Vaghani told presspersons here.
Mr. Modi will again visit the State to dedicate the Ghogha Dahej ferry service connecting the Saurashtra and south Gujarat regions over the sea. The ferry service project being implemented by the Gujarat Maritime Board will take several months to be fully functional, but the State government has planned its inauguration ahead of the Assembly elections to be held in December.
Sources in the Secretariat said the announcement of the election schedule is unlikely till October 23, considering the Prime Minister’s visit on that day. “It seems that the election announcement is likely in the last week of October,” a senior official said.
State request
The Election Commission has announced the schedule for Himachal Pradesh , while leaving out Gujarat on the grounds that the State administration had requested it to delay the announcement so that rehabilitation works can be completed in the flood-affected Banaskantha district.
For the past several years, the commission has always announced the election schedule for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh together.
As part of the pre-election campaigning, senior party leaders participated in the 15-day march launched on October 1, which covered a distance of around 4,471 kilometres spread over 149 of the 182 Assembly constituencies in the State.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, BJP president Amit Shah and many other leaders of the party will also address party workers on Monday.
Earlier in this month, Mr. Modi visited Gujarat to inaugurate and lay the foundation stones for various projects in Dwarka, Rajkot, Vadnagar, Gandhinagar and Bharuch. He held a roadshow in his home town of Vadnagar on October 8.
For the past three months, Mr. Modi has been visiting Gujarat twice a month.
