Ahead of the Kerala and Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the two poll-bound states on 14 February.
PM Modi is expected to reach Chennai on Sunday morning, where he will inaugurate the Chennai Metro Rail service to Wimco Nagar and the Cauvery-Gundar river-linking project.
Modi’s visit comes at a time when sacked AIADMK chief Sasikala has returned to Chennai amid a lot of fanfare, after serving a four-year jail term. Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami is the chief ministerial candidate of the AIADMK-BJP alliance, and the party has reiterated that Sasikala will not be taken back.
Modi is expected to interact with BJP leaders after the event. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to visit Villupuram to attend a function organised by the BJP Mahila Morcha. Party chief JP Nadda is expected to visit the state in late February.
Seat-sharing between the AIADMK and BJP is expected to be finalised during his visit.
Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Tamil Nadu to lay the foundation stone for the second phase of the Metro Rail services in Chennai when Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam reiterated their commitment to the BJP-AIADMK alliance in the upcoming elections. BJP’s national president JP Nadda had then visited the state during Pongal.
During his visit to Kerala, the PM will also inaugurate the Integrated Refinery Expansion Complex at a new Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited’s (BPCL) plant in Kochi and is also slated to meet the state's BJP team.
Modi will interact with core committee members of the state unit and discuss poll strategies, said BJP Kerala unit president K Surendran on Wednesday.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and Kerala are due in April-May 2021.
BJP leaders are looking to make a dent in Kerala despite the saffron party being a distant third in the state politics. Meanwhile in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK-BJP alliance will be fighting against the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-Congress alliance which has been out of power since 2011.
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