PM Modi’s Patna road show expected to spur on voters

The event on May 12 comes amidst concerns over lack of enthusiasm for NDA candidates and low voter turnout.

Amidst concerns over low polling percentage and reports of lack of enthusiasm for the National Democratic Alliance candidates in Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be doing a road show in Patna on the evening of 12 May.

This will be his first road show in Bihar which is being organized to enthuse the party workers and galvanize the voters of Bihar which sends 40 Lok Sabha Members to Parliament. On Sunday Modi had done a road show in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.

The said road show will start from the statue of Bhimrao Ambedkar, Bailey road in the heart of the city and end at JP square at Gandhi Maidan while traveling through both commercial and residential areas of the ancient city from where former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is seeking his second successive win.

On 27 October 2013, Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat then, was addressing a pre-election political rally at the same Gandhi Maidan, when it was rocked by a series of bomb blasts in which six people were killed. Next day Modi had visited the family members of the deceased early in the morning to pay his homage. In the 2019 polls, Modi had addressed a public rally at Gandhi Maidan but this is for the first time he will do a road show in the city.

Unlike a public rally, where the distance between the leader and the audience is big and interaction is restricted, in a road show, the distance between the leader and the spectators is a matter of few feets and involves more personal interaction and potentially fostering a stronger connection with the voters.

Patna seat has always been a ‘BJP seat”. Nevertheless, the I.N.D.I.A bloc nominee, Anshul Avijit, who is the son of former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, is working silently and tirelessly to reduce the winning margin of Prasad, who unlike other BJP MPs is not facing the charges of being un-accessible to his voters.

After his road show , that is expected to end in late evening, Modi will spend the night at Governor house and leave next morning for three political rallies at Hajipur, Motipur that comes under Muzaffarpur Lok Sabha and Saran from where former union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy is engaged in a tough battle against debutant Rohini Acharya, the daughter of former Chief Ministers Lalu Prasad Yaadav and Rabri Devi.

This will be the PM’s sixth visit to Bihar in the last one month. Earlier the PM had visited Bihar on 4 April (Jamui), 7 April (Nawada), 16 April ( Gaya and Purnia), 26 April ( Araria and Munger) and 4 May (Darbhanga).

Bihar-based party leaders, who are camping in various parts of the state, said that as per the latest feedback based on the polling that has happened in the state, the NDA is looking strong on 30-32 seats. In the 2019 polls, the NDA alliance (BJP,JDU and LJP) had won 39 seats.

According to party leaders, there was discontent against sitting MPs because of which the cadre had to put in more efforts to placate the voters. “The INDIA bloc candidates do not have the anti-incumbency baggage that our candidates are facing. Except in some seats, people are generally upset with the sitting MPs and the common complaint is that the MP did not make his presence felt in the last five years. However, ultimately, every angry voter whom we have spoken to, ends his conversation by stating that they will vote for the NDA nominee because of Narendra Modi. The Modi factor is making the difference between a win and a loss on many seats,” a senior BJP functionary based in Bihar told the Daily Guardian.

According to him this was happening on both the sets of seats- from where the BJP candidate is contesting and from where its allies are contesting. “People are not voting for the candidates, but voting for Modi”, he added.